In the Field

It's Curtains for You! Waters of Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada. October 1, 2011.

When photographing whales from above the surface of the water, you have to accept that you're going to see your subjects for only about 10% or less of your total "contact" time with them and end up bearing witness to only a narrow portion of their total behavioural repertoire. When it comes to Humpback Whales, that means you generally have 3 categories of things to shoot - breaches (such as the graceful leap captured here), feeding (including bubble-netting and lunge feeding), and tail shots.

While it is almost impossible for a keen nature photographer NOT to photograph ANY whale tail you see (and usually while blazing away at the highest frame rate your camera can muster!), after looking at about 1000 or so of the tail shots I have in my collection I have come to this conclusion: if you're shooting in a place where whales are common, it is REALLY, REALLY easy to end up with a tons (literally) of quite boring tail shots! You know, stuff that the photographer likes, but quickly puts an audience to sleep!

When I critiqued my own whale tail collection, I noticed a few things that made some of the images interesting to me. First, in the right conditions the trailing edge of the tail can produce a very visually interesting "curtain" of water draining off the flukes - almost like a waterfall or cascading rapids. In most situations the curtain is quite incomplete and not too interesting, but once in a while you get a nearly complete curtain. Second, if the ambient light is just right (and usually this means overcast skies) the water on the surface of the whale reflects just the right amount of light to accentuate interesting textures in the skin. These reflections can lead to a high-contrast image that definitely grabs one's eye! And, last but not least, sometimes individual-specific anomalies on the whale's tail - everything from striking patterns and/or scars and even the presence of barnacles living on the edges of the flukes - can increase the visual interest of tail shot.

So...in the autumn of 2011 I went on my photo tour into the Great Bear Rainforest vowing to be more selective and discerning in my shooting of humpback tails. Was I successful? Well...partly. I still took about a billion shots of those pesky tails (they're just SO seductive and compelling to shoot!). BUT, I did pay particular attention to lighting and "curtain patterns" and ensured I didn't miss those opportunities. In the case of this shot it meant that recognizing that it was critical to losing NONE of the highlight details in the curtain of water streaming off the tail. Which meant a major under-exposure of the scene (relative to the matrix-metered "suggested" exposure) - here it was -1.67 stops. It also meant choosing a shutter speed that was pretty much guaranteed to "freeze" the streaming water (1/1250s). And, I now finally have a few humpback tail shots in my collection that are not quite as likely to bore viewers to death and perhaps just might qualify as "natural art" to some!

NOTE: This image was captured during one of my photo tours into a region of British Columbia known as "The Great Bear Rainforest". I offer both instructional photo tours and "photo op only" photo tours into the Great Bear Rainforest each spring and autumn. If you're interested in participating in one of these trips, just check out the Photo Tours page of this website!

Behind the Camera

Early Autumn Sunrise Over Smithers. Smithers, BC, Canada. September 26, 2011.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) 14-bit format; ISO 1100.

Nikon D3S with Nikkor 400mm f2.8 VRII lens - hand-held from deck of sailboat. VR on in "Normal" mode.

1/1250s @ f4; -1.67 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Early Autumn Sunrise Over Smithers. Smithers, BC, Canada. September 26, 2011.

RAW Conversion to 16-bit TIFF, including first-pass/capture sharpening using Phase One's Capture One Pro 6. Three exposure variants covering a 1.0 stop total range.

Further digital corrections on resulting 16-bit TIFF files using Adobe's Photoshop CS5 and Light Craft's Lightzone. Photoshop adjustments including compositing (layering and masking) the exposure variants using multiple luminosity masks, selective colour desaturation (removing green hues in foreground water) selective exposure and curves (contrast) adjustment using adjustment layers, and selective sharpening for web output. Final tone tweaking performed using tonemapper/re-light in Lightzone.

Conservation

Early Autumn Sunrise Over Smithers. Smithers, BC, Canada. September 26, 2011.

Ten percent of the revenue generated by this image will be donated to Pacific Wild*

Species Status in Canada*: Threatened - North Pacific population (May 2003).

Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeagnliae) are active, acrobatic whales that can throw themselves completely clear of the water (a behaviour known as breaching) and will swim on their backs with both flippers in the air. Humpbacks are large (up to 14m - or 46 feet - in length and 40 tonnes in weight) and with huge flippers.

Humpbacks are found in tropical, temperate, and sub-polar waters around the world. They are found on both the east and west coasts of North America. The North Pacific population has been estimated at between 6,000 and 8,000 individuals, but only a few hundred of these are found in the waters off the coast of British Columbia.

While Humpbacks are recovering from the damage done to their populations by commercial fishing, the are still subject to a variety of threats from human activities, including becoming entangled in fishing nets, noise and chemical pollution and habitat destruction.

The region this image was shot in is known as the Great Bear Rainforest. At the time of this writing (December 12, 2011), this area is facing a new and potentially catastrophic threat. There is a proposal to bring oil super-tankers through the narrow and treacherous channels of the Great Bear Rainforest. Any mishap - such as the one that sunk the Queen of the North ferry on March 22, 2006 - could result in an oilspill with disasterous consequences. Please visit the "No Pipeline/No Tankers Action Page" on Pacific Wild's website for suggestions on what YOU can do to help stop the tankers and/or sign the petition to Stop Oil Tankers. Thanks - this one is worth the effort to fight!

*Pacific Wild is a non-profit conservation organization that is committed to:

1. Defending wildlife and their habitat on Canada's Pacific coast by developing and implementing solution-based conservation strategies. Pacific Wild supports innovative research, public education, community outreach and awareness to achieve the goal of lasting environmental protection in the lands and waters of the Great Bear Rainforest.

2. Working with a diverse array of communities, First Nations, groups and individuals to ensure that biodiversity protection is at the forefront of land and marine use decisions.

3. Mobilizing a concerned global citizenry to achieve large-scale wildlife protection.

Natural Art Images supports the efforts of Pacific Wild and encourages you to do the same.

**as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada