Wildlife Photography Positioning & Story Telling

A lioness gives her cub a scolding while the rest of the pride sleeps

One of the things i enjoy most about wildlife photography is the challenge of combining animal behavior story telling with photography techniques. Within a matter of seconds, a photographer has to decide on how to position themselves for the best composition while telling the entire story before the whole scene has suddenly changed forever. 

The above photo was taken at 18H10 and the light was fading very fast. I couldn't do much about that because the things i wanted to highlight the most in this picture were:

1. The lioness angrily growling at her naughty cub and the cub protesting back :- Photographed at a focal length of 270 mm, i could have got in tighter to the pair with my 500 mm if i wanted to, but by doing that i would have lost out on ...

2.  The rest of the pride :- I wanted to also capture the general scene of the pride that were sleepily resting while the little cub was being told off, and to do this i had to ...

3.   Position myself for the right composition :- By quickly maneuvering my general position with some light acrobatics, i could focus better on the mother and cub behavior, and also show the rest of the pride without leaving out anything and having unobstructed attention on all the main subjects.

When a photographic idea suddenly comes to mind, trying to put it all together in a matter of five seconds is not easy, but it sure is alot of fun.