A Lion Trainer Puts His Head in a Lion's Mouth in the center ring of a three ring circus, showing trust, danger and risk

Lion Trainer With His Head in A Lion's Mouth This stock shot of a lion trainer putting his head in a Lion's Mouth represents trust, danger, risk, challenge and, perhaps, foolishness.  

To create this image of a lion trainer with his head in a lion's mouth I had to first rent and photograph a lion, then create and photograph a set, then photograph friends for models, and finally composite all of the images together in Photoshop. The ring was actually a purple Hula Hoop with white tape wrapped around it to create the white bands. The "sawdust" was garlic powder (my studio smelled like garlic for weeks and my shop vac smells like garlic to this day). I posed as the lion trainer in a rented costume. We actually did have the lion sitting on a pedestal which we had made for the shoot. This stock photo illustrates concepts such as risk, danger, trust and teamwork.

Photographing a lion is serious business. The lion trainer (actually, the lion came with three trainers each with mace and a pick handle...not that either would have done much good had the lion decided to misbehave....) gave us an extensive set of rules to abide by. He was an imposing fellow and definitely put us all a bit on edge. Some of the time he seemed like a large kitten, and yet his muscularity and size, and his bearing too, left no doubt as to the destructive potential within this beast. We enticed him to stand on the pedestal by offering chunks of beef heart. We had a number of shots we need to accomplish, but it is a little hard to force a Lion to do something that he is not interested in doing!

When I had originally arranged to rent the big cat and asked the trainer how long I would get for the $5,000.00 fee she replied "As long as he wants". Turned out to be about 45 minutes at which point the trainer aid he was getting a little too interested in me...so we wrapped it up!

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