Power & Beauty

It's hard to describe the feeling experienced when a large male Killer Whale swims purposefully in your direction - even if you're safely ensconced on a boat. It's kind a mix of awe and a little fear - and certainly a respect for the power they simply exude. At the same time there's admiration for their beauty and grace, especially given their large size (the dorsal fin pictured here is about 2 meters - or 6 feet - tall).

I captured this image during a week-long photo trip in the late summer of 2010. While this is a pretty simple image, there's a few things I like about it - some are from a photographic perspective and some are from a biological perspective. The first thing is the timing of the capture (which was pure luck) - those "blows" expel water vapor at an amazing velocity and the odds of catching one just as it's beginning (and totally within the picture frame this when this close up) is low, low, low. Someone was smiling on me when I shot this. I also like (and this is another flukey thing) that the white underside of the whale is showing through despite being underwater. And, last but not least (and I DID see this when I shot the image, and focused on it) was the "standing wave" of water low on the dorsal fin. To me that adds visual interest to the shot and is just plain cool.

Before this trip I thought that Killer Whales were black and white, with perhaps a few grayish areas below their dorsal fin (their "saddles", which are used in identifying individuals). After all, every photo I've seen of them before - and certainly all illustrations I've seen in field guides - shows them as having only two "colours" - black and white (I know that technically black and white aren't single colours per se, but give me some latitude here!). But soon after I began this trip I noticed that parts of the body - most noticeably the dorsal fin - reflected various colours (most commonly a baby blue). Under bright sunlight the colours weren't visible, but when the sun went behind a cloud (like in this shot) the colours just popped. When I shot this image we had a mix of clouds and blue sky - which accounts for the blue reflections in the water. To me the most interesting thing to these coloured dorsal was that while the colour changed depending on the light, the positioning of it didn't. So, those two very dark patches on the trailing edge of the fin were ALWAYS dark - they were obviously a different colour and/or texture and reflected light differently than the lighter blue zones. By the way - the colours here are "natural" - I haven't selectively manipulated or saturated them.

Like most nature photographers I used to seek out direct sunlight (often in early morning or evening) to photograph wildlife. But, since converting to digital, and especially since the ISO performance of digital cameras has improved so much, I have found myself actively seeking overcast (and even rainy) conditions to photograph wildlife. This is especially true if I'm working "in tight" with my subject. The reason? This image illustrates it well - the colour (including tonal range and range of hues) is often SO much better when the lighting is more diffuse (and less harsh). Nowadays I tend to shun the light I used to seek! Funny how things change...

Subject: Male Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) - up close & personal
Location: Johnstone Strait region (northern Vancouver Island), BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D3s
Lens: Nikkor 600mm f4 VRII lens - handheld from sailboat. VR on and in "Normal" mode.
Exposure: 1/1250s at f5.6. ISO 2500. -0.67 stop compensation from matrix metered exposure.
Crop: This is about 75% of full frame image

All the contextual information surrounding this shot (field notes, all camera settings and processing details, conservation, etc.) can be found at:

http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/latest/.

Comments and feedback greatly appreciated...probably better to view larger version prior to doing so...

Cheers...

Brad