Okavango Delta, Botswana. 2025

"Sometimes you dream up an image long before you can realize it. Since years I had been hoping for an opportunity to photograph a leopard up in a tree in soft hazy rose-colored light. 

This year it finally came true. It was May in the Okavango Delta. This year is a year of record floods in the Delta and the areas I visited were already filled to the brim with water - already this early in the season.

Game drives often led us through flooded roads and the water would force us to lift all our belongings from the car floor as it got filled with water all the way even in the back.

This particular evening we hadn't moved too far from the camp and were watching a troop of baboons feeding, grooming and playfully interacting. It was almost bedtime for them and I had also settled with the idea of photographing baboons for the rest of the remaining light.

Suddenly my guide Kabo received a radio call. A leopard was seen up in a tree by another guide. I had told Kabo about my dream photo at the beginning of the trip and he immediately realised this might be the opportunity. He turned around with the smile of a cheeky young boy and asked: ""Are you ready for a Ferrari safari?"". The sighting was at the outer edges of our concession and the sun was already dangerously close to the horizon. ""Yes"" I whispered out of breath, of course I was ready, even if it was just a slight chance we would make it.

And so we raced through the bush. When we eventually arrived at the sighting we saw her. A stunning female leopard up in a beautiful Sycamore fig tree. And just then she decided that it was about time for her evening hunt. The sun had already set leaving the sky in a burnt orange and rose color. She got up, looked around and quickly jumped off the tree - giving me just a few minutes to take her photograph, which now is one of my favourite leopard photos I have ever taken."