Customer Reviews

Eye of the Leopard

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Even keeping a high expectation of the book, when I started reading and flipped it through for the pictures I have been still surprised with the content. The imagery is stunning and uncommon, the story is simply beautiful.

This book pops up in the middle of other books I have home. Golden letters of the title on its cover and the contrasting picture just seize my eyes when I look at it. A masterpiece you MUST have if you appreciate Africa, wildlife, bigcats, and photography.

I am not really sure how this book can be rated less than 5 stars. The edition, published by Rizzoli, is beautifully printed and bound, with great quality photos. The video version is also excellent.

What the Jouberts have done, is incredible. They followed Legadema for three years, from birth to adulthood. This is not a book of nameless leopards photos (which can still be nice!). This is the story of an individual, amazing creature. A photojournal of the first three years of her life. Between the quality and the content, this is possibly my favorite wildlife book out there.

I have been very fortunate to have traveled to Botswana, and visited Mombo. I saw Legadema many times. She is now about 7 years old and is as magnificent and complicated as the photos and video reveal.

yet another glimpse into the lives of animals that may soon no longer be with us. This book's photography is gorgeous as it follows one leopard through the first three years of her life. Really makes you wonder about people who would enjoy killing such an animal in the name of sport.

The jacket of this book is the only good thing about it. It's beautiful. However the photography is terrible. I do not object to black and white photography if it's well done but this was not well done. Some are even out of focus. The jacket on the first book came ripped and I contacted Amazon and they overnighted a new book to me. Excellant service there. I ordered this for my husband for Christmas and didn't have a replacement or I would have just sent it back and not reordered however knowing that everyone has different opinions of things I was hopeful he would disagree with me this time. Unfortunately he agrees with me on the quality of this book. The only thing good I can say about it aside from the jacket is I am glad I did not pay the retail price of $70.00. Even the $47.00 was way too much.

Some of the pictures in this book are incredible. I particularly love the shots of leopards against the stark blue sky. The color pictures are all excellent and portray this beautiful animal beautifully. However, some photos are in black and white, reducing the beauty and power of the photo. Africa is a land of such rich and vivid colors that taking color out of the picture seems counterproductive. Unfortunately, around half of the pictures in this are black and white. Therefore, I can't recommend it as strongly as I'd like.

You might also want to check out The Lords of the Savannah - Leopards & Cheetahs (Art of Being...) if you like spotted cats.