I’m not sure how it started but I must have seen an ad for photographing the Jaguars in the Brazilian Pantanal, a region in central Brazil south of the city of Cuiaba. The first operation I selected turned out to be a bit sketchy, so I bailed and kept looking. I was referred to Aaron’s Photo Tours by a executive at a company I was talking with. Turns out Aaron is based right here in western Washington! Aaron runs dedicated photography tours catering to the hard-core nature photographers – right up my alley! After a Zoom call I booked the last spot on the Jaguars of The Pantanal tour for July of 2026 and just returned now.
Gallery links here, read on for the rest of the story.
Jaguars of the Pantanal
Monkeys of the Pantanal
Birds of the Pantanal
Other Animals
Stella Checking on her Brothers
We all met in Cuiaba and started our journey to the Pantanal. The animal life density increased along the drive and we spent two nights at a halfway lodge to check it out. Capybaras, Capuchin and Howler monkeys on the property along with a wealth of birds.
Our timing was great and had some lovely trees in full bloom as well.
After that brief stop, we continued on to the rivers and traveled to our floating “houseboat” lodge for the next five nights. We then spent most of each day out on the river to photograph the jaguars and other life. With two boats the 10 of use plus Aaron and two other guides we had plenty of room to spread out with our gear. This is the sort of special arrangement you get on a dedicated photo tour. It allowed me to keep two cameras with different lenses within inches of my fingers at a moment’s notice to capture the action. And action we had every journey out into the sun and heat.
The river system is extensive with little shade, plenty of sun/heat and tons of different jaguars.
A wonderful trip filled with life and designed for the photographer first. Aaron ran a great operation with all details considered and handled. He regularly gave useful and practical advice while never insisting on you doing it his way. I learned a lot that will help me with my photography going forward. And I got some great jaguar photos to add to my “cat wall” at home.
One example of such assistance was a shaded jaguar in a tree. Aaron suggested a series of bracketed shots that could then be merged in Adobe Lightroom to build an HDR image of the jag. It turned out really well and is below.
