Whale Musings

For some reason, whales have been on my mind. I love these gentle giants and have been photographing them for years. The species I photograph are humpbacks, so named for the curved backs displayed when diving. They were hunted to near extinction until hunting of them was banned in 1956. Since then they have rebounded wonderfully.

Successful professional photographers can often point to one defining image that put them into the big time. For me, it was a photo of a breaching (jumping) humpback made in Prince William Sound, Alaska, when the animals were still rare. On the day that I got the shot, everything seemed to conspire against me: I was on a slow-moving sailboat, shooting a film camera with manual advance, no quick acting motor drive. We had seen some commotion in the water and so we pointed the boat that way. Because I had no tripod, I flattened myself on the bow with a 300mm lens, took a few photos, and said, ho hum, didn't get much. We went home, I mailed the Kodachrome film for processing to the closest lab (in those days, in Palo Alto, California) and a few weeks later got the slides. Grabbing the package from the mailbox, I shuffled through the slides and found this keeper, a photo I didn't even know I'd taken.

It ain't much compared to what's out there today, but it was the shot kicked around the world. Magazines and books near and far printed it. The Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia still uses the image today.

Humpbacks can be notoriously difficult to photograph, as they are underwater most of the time and it's difficult to predict where and when they'll surface. Fast shutter speeds and advance positioning help. Often a whale will breach again and again in the same place. More typically they will roll on the surface several times before sounding for ten to fifteen minutes.

I've led photo adventures for Dolphin Charters in Southeast Alaska since 1999 and over the years have rejoiced in recording the antics of these amazing marine mammals. I have a perfect setup: a large, relatively stable platform from which to shoot, a captain who is a marine whale biologist and understands and somewhat predicts their behaviors, plenty of time with these great creatures (we sometimes spend hours with a group of whales), and a warm, cozy cabin afterwards where we can download our images on our computers for almost instant feedback, so different from the film days and waiting weeks for processing. I've learned so much more about our Alaska whales, about their annual migration from Hawaii, mother/calf bonding, lobtailing, pectoral fin slapping, bubble feeding, and yes, breaching. No one really knows why they breach, but typically the younger, more feisty whales breach more often than the adults.

A couple of years ago, we were at Point Adolphus, south of Glacier Bay, when a whale breached only ten feet from the boat. Fortunately the 45-ton animal fell away from the boat rather than on us. It doesn't make for that great a shot, but I think you can get a sense of the moment in this image as the whale erupted out of the sea. It was a bit too close for my big lens, and yes, a bit too close for comfort.

Wet Weather

Often I hear other photographers complain that they can't take photographs on a given day because it's raining. Here in Northern California we're finally into our wet season after months of relentlessly blue sky, and that's a blessing. The wet season brings not only rain, but beautiful skies. Cloud cover also results in reduced contrast and foliage saturated with color. Cityscapes come alive with beautiful street reflections. Fog adds mysterious layers to landscapes. Best of all, sparkling raindrops decorate leaves, as in this photo, taken in a tiny park in Wrangelll, Alaska, with a small point and shoot.

Each summer I have the privilege of leading photography tours to Southeast Alaska. On the last two trips we've had rain almost every day. However, the participants find a lot to love. When it's sunny, bears and other critters crawl off into the woods to cool. When it's overcast or rainy (we call this "bear weather"), the bears come out to play. Clouds encircle mountain peaks, reminiscent of an Oriental painting. Icebergs are even more blue in "inclement" weather, as in the berg below, photographed between showers in Endicott Arm, Alaska.

Of course, one must be prepared for rain. Rubber boots and raingear make for better creature comforts. Some system for protecting delicate camera gear from moisture is essential. This can be as simple as a plastic bag with a small hole torn to let the front of the lens peep through (secure this with a rubber band), or you can go for more sophisticated commercial options that cost more. Take a chamois cloth or rag to periodically dry off gear in the field. Your camera bag should have a rain cover, even if it's just a garbage bag. Many bags have built in covers. At the end of your outing, be sure to dry off gear before you put it away.

Because light is dimmer on a cloudy day, you'll have to increase your camera ISO to compensate for the lack of light so that you can enable high enough shutter speeds to hand hold your camera. On older digital cameras it was not possible to go over ISO 400 without substantial loss in quality, but the latest generations of cameras now make it possible to go much higher.

So, love that rain!

Warp Speed Photo Technology

I have a friend who made a reputation for himself as a creator of large-scale photographic panoramas using large, heavy equipment, and at one time he had three galleries who exclusively represented his work. Along came Photoshop. He refused to budge from his fine niche in the the film world. The result: his career has fallen by the wayside, because it's so easy to create amazing panos in Photoshop. The same thing is happening now. Digital photography technology has evolved at a mind boggling rate.

Just in the last year or two the photography world has changed yet again, with the advent of high quality point and shoot cameras along with smartphone cameras and the seemingly endless apps that accompany these. Many of us carry our phones everywhere, which means we are "there" for the moment. The phones and new cameras are tiny and portable. We are seeing more spontaneous images, always a great deal of fun.

Of course, any technology can be abused. Users of smartphones still need to be aware of such niceties as composition and exposure. As I write this, most phones are only capable of 8 MP images, which means huge enlargements are not easy. At the other end of the digital photography spectrum, I use a Nikon D800E, capable of detailed enlargements five feet across. But for everyday work, my little iPhone brings much joy.

The attached image was taken this past summer in Alaska. Heavy rain was falling, I was tired and not really wanting to haul a big camera around. However, I grabbed my little Nikon AW100 (waterproof) 16 MP point and shoot and began wandering around the ruins of an old cannery, entranced by the rotting pilings. At home, I uploaded this image to my iPad, did some post processing with Snapseed, and replicated an image with a sepia/black and white feel I might have made 30 years ago with my old Nikkormat and PanatomicX film, spending a lot of time in the darkroom with specialty papers and selenium toner (nasty stuff!).

The world never ceases to fascinate. I look forward to teaching some smartphone workshops in late spring and will be enthusiastically exploring this medium for a long time to come.