The psychologists tell us that constraints can be helpful. When we have total freedom we often don’t know what to do with ourselves. Spoilt for choice, we find we can’t choose anything at all.
So I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when the limitations Bhanu put me under turned out to help me. Bhanu is the handsome Asiatic lion at ZSL London Zoo. Like all good zoo animals he likes to hide in the most inaccessible parts of his enclosure and seems determined to avoid direct lines of sight from his many visitors.
I normally find this habit of Bhanu’s quite frustrating. After all, I’ve paid my membership fee for the year and I expect some half-decent photos of a lion in return. But on this occasion instead of seeing his evasiveness as a drawback I looked on it as an opportunity.
He was lying quite high up on a ledge. He could only be seen from a narrow part of a viewing area, behind toughened glass, and with various bits of decoration in the way. That part of the enclosure is themed like an Indian railway station, so iron girders and platform signs jut out and obscure the view to where Bhanu was lying. And to complicate matters further, crowds of visitors were pushing to get a good look so I had to climb some stairs and balance at an odd angle to get a clear shot.
Timing was everything here. I found a natural frame where the faux street furniture outlined the lion’s body but as he was lying down it wasn’t easy to see his face. Then he raised his head and looked straight towards me. The sunlight cut across his face giving him a good glow. The narrow frame through to where he was lying turned out to be the perfect size and shape.
I’ve taken dozens of photos of Bhanu over the past couple of years. This was the one that was most difficult to compose and took most patience to execute. But it is the one I am most pleased with. Pleased because – not despite – the constraints involved in taking it.