Pascal Maranus, Animal Portrait Photographer

10/09/2026

Throwback Thursday: back about 2.5 years, when I just had completed my dream camera + lens setup and had to take it out for a test drive. The result: this grey seal on the beach. With sand almost perfectly smooth and the seal not caring about all the spectators around.

📍 Neeltje Jans, NL
📷 Sony Benelux A7R V + 400mm f/2.8 GM

07/09/2026

How many different lions do you see in this set of lion portraits? I can tell you: it’s more than one and less than five 😉

📍 ZooParc Overloon
📷 Sony Benelux A7R V + Sony | Alpha Europe 400mm GM (some x1.4)

03/09/2026

Two cheetah photos — one in a zoo, one in the wild. But which one is which? Easy to spot the difference: one’s got a collar on, the other doesn’t. Such a collar shows human interference, so that’s got to be the zoo one, right? Wrong.

These collars are used in the wild to monitor endangered species and their populations. I’ve seen them used on cheetahs and wild dogs, but also on the European bisons closer to home.

No, the collars don’t look nice in the pictures. And thus, I avoid taking pictures that have them. But for educational purposes, I wanted to share this with you.

31/08/2026

Who could have ever guessed this? My work’s being featured in a game.

I was recently approached for some projects outside of my usual photography/art environment.

And the first one I get to publicly talk about is “Borbs” — a familiar type of puzzle game that features birds. And the illustrated birds have detail pages with real photos of the featured birds. One of those photos is one of mine.

Will you play it, when it launches in November, to find out which?

Reunite well-rounded birds with their flock by solving simple, yet ...

29/08/2026

Throwback to one of the earliest pictures I took in my developing years, where I thought: “Oh, this actually starts to look like what I want to create in my mind.”

This younger, curious Grant’s zebra came over to see what was going on. Which gave me the opportunity to get the close up I wanted.

As I’ve been moving more and more away from zoos in the past year and a bit, it’s also good to remember: it is a great place to develop your skills as a photographer.

📍 Beekse Bergen
📷 Nikon D850 + 200-500mm

24/08/2026

Few leopards I’ve seen — wild or zoo — have a look as beautiful and dare I say perfect as this one. It is leopards like this that are why I’ve booked my third trip to South Africa just recently.

This time it was in a zoo… The dream is to replicate it in the wild.

Which of these is your favourite and why? Between the two close ups, I can’t even choose between colour or black & white. So I’d love to hear your thoughts.

📍 an undisclosed zoo
📷 Sony Benelux A7R V + Sony 400mm GM

23/08/2026

While my main “business” is on Instagram, I know it’s not everybody’s favourite place. I certainly know plenty of people that have Facebook, but not Instagram.

So from now on, I’ll be posting to both, in order to hopefully reach a broader audience.

Stay tuned 😉