Another freakin’ humpback whale breaching photo? Well, yes, it is! I normally prefer breaching images at the peak of the whale’s trajectory, because they don’t appear as powerful in the limp-coming back down phase, let alone when the big splash happens. However, what I do like about this image is that it shows the power of the whale’s tail propelling it almost completely out of the water. You can see that there is very little of the whale still connected to the surface. I had to keep moving my inflatable for safety, but I also wanted to keep the whale on the inside of me in order to photograph it against the pretty blue mountains in the distance.
As I have previously mentioned, I will be editing my new humpback whale breaching images for months to come. This is another graceful breach from the incredibly cooperative whale that I photographed last month in Frederick Sound. This young whale repeatedly displayed its enthusiasm for the warm sun, good eating, close friends, and nearby photographer for almost 2 hours. I could not capture every breach perfectly, but I am pleased with how many of the sequences yielded surprising images. Take this one for instance. It is not the boldest breach ever, but I like the gentle angle, perfect composition, and delicate twist of water emanating from its pectoral fin. It just looks like a happy whale.
After departing Juneau and motoring down Stephens Passage to Frederick Sound, I spent my first night anchored at the Brothers Islands. Because of the long distance I’d motored the day before, my first priority was refueling. En route to the Kake fuel dock, I encountered my first breaching humpback whale! This whale was clearly happy that I was there to photograph it and could not contain its enthusiasm for my arrival. I normally use my more maneuverable inflatable to photograph breaching, but since I was on my C-Dory, I quickly passed the helm off to my dad as I grabbed my camera and headed towards the bow. The whale was heading in my direction and posed several times for me where I told it to. Thank you for your cooperation whale and see you in Hawaii next winter.
I hope that my regular readers aren’t getting bored yet of all my new breaching humpback whale photos. Though I had spent over 20 weeks the last 4 summers cruising Southeast Alaska with my boat, not until 2 weeks ago did I encounter a whale that yielded so many publishable breaching images. I could post a unique breach a day for the next month if I wanted to. What an amazing experience! Based on my hectic travel schedule, I will still be editing and posting these images well into the fall.
I have high standards for photographing whales, especially since I am friends with some of the top professional marine photographers in the world, like Doug Perrine, Brandon Cole, and Stuart Westmorland. I prefer to use my Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens to photograph breaching. This lens gives me the flexibility to zoom in and frame the breach once I see it start to happen, but requires me to be relatively close to my subject. I used to also use a Canon 1.4X tele-converter, but now prefer the results of using the smaller image sensor on my Canon 7D with its 1.6X crop. I am a real stickler when it comes to my photography ethics and consider cropping more than 10% of the original image a failure. At 7fps, I typically capture a number of out of focus, poorly composed images, with a horizon that is consistently skewed down to the right. Thus, I am particularly pleased when I capture a moment like this, especially at 70mm.
Two weeks ago, I photographed this humpback whale on Frederick Sound. I find this image particularly striking due to the unusual, head-on perspective. The humpback breached towards me which helped illustrate its streamlined body. Also, the pectoral fins in this shot are perfectly angled at the whale’s side as it thrusts itself out of the water. This young whale must have breached at least 50 times over a 2 hour period. Incredible! I was able to anticipate the breaches about 50% of the time and zeroed in on about 12 different sequences that will yield publishable images. My dad was with me and managed to capture this breach on video using my iPhone, which you can view on YouTube.
A few months ago, I stopped posting images while traveling, because I didn’t like the results of my color processing on my 13″ MacBook Pro. I thought that I would make an exception for one of my new humpback whale breaching images from my last week of cruising Southeast Alaska.
Last Sunday, I left Juneau and motored my 22′ C-Dory 90 miles south down Stephens Passage to Frederick Sound. The weather forecast was typically miserable, however, I was elated to experience sunny skies for 3 days. My previous attempts at photographing humpbacks breaching have not been very successful, so I assumed that my chance of capturing anything epic was miniscule. The several hundred whales on Frederick Sound typically only come to the surface for 3-4 breaths before deep diving to feed for 20 minutes. The most common photo is of their tails. In order to photograph a breach, I have to locate a playful whale that is not several miles away, which is what I did with this youngster. It repeatedly breached, slapped its pectoral fins, and tail lobbed near my small boat for over 2 hours. Incredible!
One of my underwater humpback whale images appears on billboards in New Zealand this month. (Anyone in NZ able to send me a picture?) When I first set out to make a living as a professional photographer, I initially found success selling fine-art prints through galleries & art shows. That business model ceased being effective with the down-turn in the economy, so I turned my focus to my website. Many of my modest sales now come from having good SEO. This sale is a perfect example. A design firm contacted me a few weeks ago after searching the web, offered me a reasonable usage rate, I emailed them the file, and they wire-transferred the money to me. How easy was that?
I am pleased to announce that my image Humpback Whale 6 is featured on the cover of the February 2010 issue of Alaska Airlines magazine! Be sure to check it out if you are on an Alaska Airlines flight this month. Also, the opening double page image to the humpback whale article was photographed by my friend Brandon Cole during a previous trip that we took together. I have the exact same image, since we were next to each other in the water when we both almost got run over by a humpback whale mother & calf. Photographing whales above or below water is my favorite kind of photography. It also helps that I am comfortable swimming in the open ocean in 10,000 feet of water and enjoy staring down into the blue depths underneath my fins.
This is a great blog post to transition from my dramatic landscape photography to more of my new wildlife images from the last year. I’ve been tightly editing my image archives the last few weeks and have come across a few keepers that are worth sharing in the days ahead.
Last fall, I was contacted by the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, DC about licensing one of my images for their website. The graphic designer that I worked with wanted to use my image of humpback whales bubble-feeding at sunset in Chatham Strait, Alaska. Coincidentally, I was contacted by a client yesterday who ordered 6 copies of this image as mini prints for her friends. It is one of my all time favorite images and one that I could never reproduce no matter how hard I tried.
Last August, I was in Alaska photographing humpback whales bubble feeding in front of Tenakee Springs when I got a message from my dad and wife on my satellite phone telling me that we had a house fire. I was only 2 days into my trip with Stuart Westmorland and Ken Howard, but we all agreed that it was time for me to head home after that afternoon with the whales. It has been 6 months since it happened and tomorrow we are moving back home! I’ll be off the computer for a few days, but will be back online as soon as I can get everything moved and my office set back up.
It is pretty pathetic outside in Seattle today. I have been home all day listening to NPR while working on several submissions and doing a printing project for a client. Both I-5 and I-90 are closed due to extensive flooding throughout the state. We even made the national news for how miserable it is. I’ve only been back from Panama for 1 week, but I am already vowing to not be here at all next winter from my daughters Christmas break through January. I really get bummed out and depressed in this weather so that is why I started traveling and working for myself 8 years ago. I am really looking forward to my diving trip next week. The weather forecast is starting to look very promising, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed. I am also looking forward to going back to Patagonia for a backpacking and photography trip in 2 weeks.
My February trip to Hawai’i was my best trip that I have ever had for humpback whales. I talked Paul Souders into joining me for 2 weeks on the water and we had a great time together. (Paul is also going to Hornby Island with me and Ken next week.) I created this image using my Canon 5D digital SLR and 20mm lens in my Ikelite underwater camera housing at f2.8 and 1/250 second.
