Last month, photographer Shawn Heinrichs spent 9 days at sea off the coast of Sri Lanka in search of blue whales. Although the trip ended without any photographs of blue whales, Heinrichs and his team did manage to capture a world’s first: photographs of an epic battle between killer whales and sperm whales.
Read more…
While working as a fishing guide in Tofino, British Columbia, Matthew Thornton captured this wild photograph of a humpback whale calf leaping out of the water an extremely short distance away (estimated at 10-30 feet). In his submission to the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest, Thornton writes,
On our way in from fishing for halibut we noticed a few humpback whales playing in the distance and we stopped part way in to watch. It was quite an experience to see something completely airborne so close to the boat. The lucky thing was I got the photo I submitted. A fellow boat also got a picture of the whale close to mid air and it was also all caught on video. Was an amazing day.
It’s always fun listening to photographers recount once-in-a-lifetime experiences that lead to once-in-a-lifetime photographs. In this short National Geographic video, photographer Brian Skerry describes what it was like to get up close and personal with a 45-foot-long whale. We only wish there was a little video to go along with his wonderful storytelling!
