The Serengeti is home to some of Africa’s most outstanding male lions, and Bob Jr of the Utafiti Pride is perhaps the most impressive of them all. I spent several days in his company in 2021, and when returning in 2022, I was eager to build on my portraits of him from the previous year. On my return, I was blessed with some genuinely magnificent skies. I was particularly excited about this because the previous year had been almost entirely blue skies which caused many complications, especially as an exclusively black-and-white photographer. One of the greatest challenges as a wildlife photographer is combining many elements to piece together into one final frame. Without these elements coming together at precisely the right moment, you cannot create a worthy photograph. I sat with these two males for almost an hour as they lay in the grass, fast asleep. As the magnificent rays of light appeared in the background, I anxiously waited, hoping they would wake up to form the final piece of the puzzle. To my luck, they both raised their heads, had a brief scan around and then flopped back down to rest again. Moments later, the sun descended below the clouds, and the mind-blowing shafts of light were gone.