Santa Monica Mountain Lion

This photograph, posted on the National Park Service instagram feed in February 2018, depicts the face of a mountain lion at a perhaps uncomfortably close proximity to the picture plane. The lion’s broad forehead fills the top of the square frame, narrowing downward to create a v-shape with its pointed muzzle. No expression is apparent given the calm eyes and closed mouth, resulting in a sense of stillness, or even death. The mountain lion seems unnaturally front-lit, potentially as the result of a camera flash. Behind the foreground of the face, the image recedes quickly into the unfocused and indistinct background of the mountain lion’s body.
While the caption explicitly locates the mountain lion in the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles, this image omits aspects of place, be it natural or built. This photograph demontrates an emphasis on the animal itself, rather than the environment within which it exists. Indeed, without the context of the caption, it is not only impossible to know that this was taken in the Santa Monica Mountains but impossible to know anything about the place it was taken at all. As a result, the face of the mountain lion becomes symbolic of nature rather than the landscape it exists within.