William Klein

Cheetah

  There was a woman who had a pet cheetah. In fact, many of the people who saw her with her cheetah thought she looked like the cheetah. She loved these comments because who would not want to look like a cheetah. They are just awesome. She was also a model so the photographers would ask her to take her cheetah to the shoots to take pictures of them together. 

 One day she was walking down the streets to a shoot with her cheetah. She decided to stop at a park because they still had some time before they actually had to be there. She let it off its leash because he was trained and would listen to her when she called. Unfortunately, there were two kids at this park. When they saw the cheetah, they did not know it had an owner. Out of fear, the older of the kids took out a gun he had to protect his little brother and shot at the cheetah. Luckily he missed and the woman called for the cheetah. She then put it on its leash and walked over to the boys.

She was not angry, but explained to them that it was her pet. That was surprising to them since they had never met anyone with a pet cheetah. She let them pet it and afterwards everyone carried on with their everyday lives. A couple of months later, the boys passed by a newsstand and saw a magazine with the cover being a picture of the woman and her cheetah. It was a beautiful picture and they were glad they had not hurt the cheetah back in the park. 

The images above were both taken by William Klein.