At the table, Lady T would climb up my pant's leg, onto my lap, up on the table, and, crouched low, she would contentedly share my meal with me. I wanted a series of photographs of this special cat in the natural habitat of the jungle. The kitten was still too little to run away, so several of the workers at the lodge helped me find a suitable location where they could surround the perimeter and keep the ocelot within camera range. One of the remarkable things about the Amazon is that on the river itself, the temperature is lovely. The balmy air is usually accompanied by a gentle breeze and the climate seems idyllic .
Breathing even seems difficult and laborious.
And the insects are outrageous. The only way I could shoot the cat was with a flash. Even 1600 ISO film would not be sufficient to accurately expose the shot with a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the action. I set my flash to the automatic exposure mode, since the distance between the ocelot kitten and the camera would vary constantly. It's impossible to follow a kitten around the jungle with a tripod, so I knew this shot had to be hand held.