Here's a closeup of one of the two amur leopards at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. I don't know what he was watching, probably people. He was close, right behind the glass.

This was taken on Dec. 31, 2020. I'm pretty sure it was the male. Zoo staff had just moved the amur leopards into the snow leopard habitat. They switch them to give them variety. Bhutan wasn't yet in the habitat the amur leopards had previously been.

I spent an inordinate amount of time developing this from raw. Afterward, I went into Photoshop to try to touch it up. There was class between me and the leopard, as with so many of my photos from the zoo. With as dirty as the glass was, smeared in places, it really marred the photo. So I've done a lot of fine-tuning with healing and other tools. Zooming, time-consuming finesse, and patience. Then I realized I'd only done this with the web-resolution photo. I usually save a print resolution and web resolution. If anyone is interested in a print, however, I'll go back and redo it at the appropriate resolution. I don't mind. Just let me know.

Also, the glass changes color hue at times, especially as the sun goes behind the mountain the zoo is set on. At this point in the day, everything was subdued. So the vibrant color of the leopards from photos taken earlier were more muted here. There's nothing I can do about that. It's one of those things that just happens with photography. So many elements are variables out of our control.

Thanks for viewing, everyone!