In the big-game country of Africa I am always aware of the huge, overpowering, blue sky, especially at places like the Amboseli plain in southern Kenya, shown here in Cheetah Siesta. I wanted to feel the presence of the sky in this picture, but I had to be persuaded by my wife, Birgit, that I could put the horizon as low as it is and still have room for the cheetah and the plain. I also had to resist the temptation to let more tall grasses stretch across the horizon, or to introduce a cruising vulture in the distant sky. By leaving it empty, the sky becomes as strong a force in the picture as the cheetah itself. - Robert Bateman