Tolerance
During one of my visits to the Serengeti and the Massai Mara Plains, I followed this large male lion around for a while. While I was in hopes of getting an image with some really harsh back lighting, the sun and camera angles never really worked out. Just before we decided to depart the area, he turned directly to me and presented me with a simple portrait. Back at the camera tent, I took a look at the image and suddenly I realized just how much pain this fellow must have been in. Looking closely, you can see a massive amount of ticks on his face and those crazy fairly flies are biting his nose to the point that they are bringing blood. All the time, he just sits there and takes it in stride. And we think we have bad days?
Feb 2010 Nikon D300, 70-200mm f/2.8, ISO 250, 1/125 sec at f/10
Cheers and happy photo’ing