All my life, I have loved big cats. I grew up watching the Discovery channel and reading National Geographic, watching magnificent animals wander across vast grass savannahs and through insurmountable mountain passes.

I have always wanted to photograph cats, but the Mountain Lion, also known as the Cougar, Puma, or Panther, has always stood out for me. All of my life I have felt a draw towards this cat. If you believe in spiritual animals, this is my totem. After acquiring a larger lens, I set out trying to photograph a Mountain Lion in the wild.

I spent countless early hours in Colorado searching and waiting. I tried teaming up with the DOW to tag along with them while they looked for cats, to no avail. One friend, Craig Childs, is a desert writer. He tells a story of coming face to face with a Mountain Lion at a glacier lake. I dreamed of having an experience similar to his. All around me people I know had seen these big cats, but I keep being left behind.

I remember feeling like I was getting close, finding fresh cat scat or many paw prints. Other times I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise as though something was watching me. Still I found no cat.

As frustrating as it was I always found other creatures. I came across many deer, elk, coyotes, bear, moose, and the bobcat. As much as I wanted to photograph the Mountain Lion, I loved being outdoors and having the opportunity to come face to face with so many amazing animals.

To fill the void of photographing the Mountain Lion in the wild, I thought I shouldn't deprive myself of photographing them. I knew these cats could be photographed in a zoo or animal sanctuary so I set off to do just that.

I found that the Arizona Desert Museum just outside of Tucson Arizona has the most realistic settings of any zoo I have ever seen. Their exhibits blend in with the natural surroundings, because they are built into the desert, utilizing the natural settings. I also enjoyed the Mendoza Zoo, but that's halfway around the world!

Finding a zoo or animal sanctuary is an easy way to get close to these majestic cats, but still its no walk in the park.

It requires a lot of patience to photograph cats. Even though it's a zoo I really think people should retain some sort of ethics. Tourists come by with their point and shoots and make loud whistles or clapping sounds just to get an animal to look at them. I am fully against this. I think that we, as photographers, are on the animals time. They will do what they want and we are there to document it without interfering.

Mountain Lions are hard to find in the wild, but they still are hard to photograph in an enclosed area.

You can use a large array of lenses for shooting most animals at a zoo, but really the best lens are 100-400mm F4-5.6 IS. My personal favorite for any wildlife the 500mm F4 IS. Combined with a 1.4 tele extender, these are my lenses of choice for cats.

I usually take time to set up and watch my subjects long before I shoot them, just noticing everything I can about what type of enclosure it is, and if I can tell if it's a male or a female.

While photographing cats I can't help but overhear people tell their kids what type of cats they are viewing. Probably the worst one was when I was in Denver at the tiger exhibit and a parent told their kid it was a cheetah.

I have a special page on my website for "educating children". Schools can book me to come in and talk to them about animals, and learn about the different types.

When I get home I upload all my images to the computer and before I even look at them I burn them all to DVD. I never delete anything in the field. A photo you might have deleted because you thought you had the same one can turn out to be entirely different. The subject could have slightly moved its eyes, just enough to make the shot amazing.

This is where I am quite different from a lot of people. I use a free program called Picasa by Google.( for mac or pc, I use both at the same time) I can tag items and easily view my photographs very quickly. I don't really use Photoshop. Even though I am a young guy I am kind of an oldest. I don't like to do things you can't normally do in a darkroom. I adjust levels and contrast, or sometimes take a twig out, but that's really it. I don't like to manipulate my images beyond that.

Something I believe in very much is conservation, that's why my photography company is called Photographs for Conservation. I hope to educate people by photographs, on how beautiful our planet and creatures are. I hope these photographs touch people to help save our planet for future generations, so we can still have the hope of seeing those exclusive glimpses of the worlds most secretive animals. ( don't get to dramatic, i.e. sappy)

Finally in the fall of 2008 I saw my first Mountain Lion in the wild. It was in the Colorado foothills outside of Denver. It was only for a second, but I will never forget that experience, and I don't think the cat will either.

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Jorel Cuomo was born in California in 1985. He spent his childhood years on the Pacific northwest coast of Canada and Hawaii where he developed an intimate love of nature.

He has spent the past year traveling back and forth to Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Colombia on business and pleasure all the while photographing what his eyes see.

He is a recipient of a 2004 NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association) High School Photography Scholarship.

In the fall of 2005, he was presented the Young Entrepreneur of Colorado award by Young Americans Bank and was featured on NBC's Morning News. His photograph 'Dancing Cormorants' hung at the Smithsonian National Museum in Washington DC.

His publication credits include: Smithsonian, Natures Best, Shutterbug, NBC, and High Country News, and Jorel R. Cuomo's Photographs for Conservation