South Africa, 2020

There is a transcending level of power and vitality to this image of an adult lioness. Her intent and the precision of that intent makes the photograph. They are magnificent cats and, when they need to be, they are also killing machines.

It was taken with my favourite 58mm lens, which offers extraordinary detail if the focus is right and the ISO is low. As with other images in this series, our approach was to work inside a cage so heavy that the lioness could not topple or destabilise it.

Looking at the camera metadata, this was captured around 6.45 am which, given the amount of preparation involved, hints at just how early our starts are in Africa.