Photographing whales

I just noticed that in my last post I happened to pick the first shot from my film strip header – so why not go through all of them as they are five of my favourite shots.

The next shot in the header above is a humpback whale tail. I love animals and shooting wildlife is heaps of fun. In this case it also felt a bit adventurous! The image is from last year, I was in Brisbane and went on a whale tour with Moreton Bay Whale Watching (highly recommended! I’ll be back this year to go again) just one day after a big storm (it actually blew a gale! they said this on channel 9 news “off the coast it blew a gale”. Very funny I thought!)…hang on where was I?

Right, I’m off in the big custom built catamaran with Skipper Kerry and the swells are 2-3 meters and that means when the boat is stationary and we’re scouting for whales it’s one big rollercoaster up and down big waves! Hold on! (to the boat…and your lunch!). So one hand on the railing and one hand holding my Canon 5D with 70-200mm f/4.0 L lens with shutter on continous and auto focus on servo, scout the horizon 360 degrees for whales and when you spot whales breaching – shoot! and keep shooting! With one hand, don’t let go of the railing or you’ll be chucked off the boat by the waves! We did this for about 3 hours and had a whale of a time so to speak, great fun! Half the people on the boat were seasick but I was happily shooting away at 3 frames per second, riding the waves and admiring these beautiful whales (some of them about the size of the boat). And this is one of the shots from that great day out in Moreton Bay:
Humpback whale tailSo the lesson for shooting wild life…hold on to the bloody boat for dear life! Oh and be aware, concentrated and be quick mate, wildlife waits for nobody!

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