whale

Drone camera footage captured an enormous fin whale with a deformed spine suffering from a rare case of "severe scoliosis."

A female orca was captured on camera caring for a baby pilot whale in the first ever known case of its kind.

A humpback whale swam 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) with a broken back that was monitored with drone cameras.

An Argentinian photographer has captured a once-in-a-lifetime drone shot of a whale playfully swimming beneath a stand-up paddle (SUP) board as the rider takes in the view of the magnificent ocean mammal.

The ninth-annual Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition has published it's 2020 winners whose entrants spanned 80 countries and thousands of photos. The organization applauds the images as showcasing the perseverance of underwater artistry amidst the adversity of the times.

A group of whale-watchers in Quebec recently had an unforgettable encounter with a giant whale that apparently wanted to pose for some close-up photos. What happened was captured in the 30-second video above.

An annual photo contest in Japan is apologizing and canceling this year's event after selecting a photo of a man on a dead whale as the grand prize winner. That photo sparked an strong outcry from the public.

How far would you go for the perfect wildlife photo? Would you sit on a rotting whale carcass in the midst of great white shark feeding frenzy? Well, that's exactly what one scientist photographer does in the clip above, which aired back in 2008 on the Discovery Channel.

A couple of kayakers, believe to be a father and daughter, had an unbelievable encounter with some playful whales in the waters off the coast of Puerto Madryn, Argentina. They captured the entire thing in a GoPro video that has since gone viral, but the footage has sparked serious criticism from authorities and those who capture professional footage and photos of these gentle giants.

Photographer and animal lover Dale Frink was on a whale watching trip earlier this month when something scary happened: two lunge feeding blue whales popped up right behind the whale watching boat he was on, capsizing it and sending Frink and all his stuff into the frigid water.

And yet, he still got the shot.

We started off the day with some good news for drone photographers (and Amazon), and so we thought we'd send you off into the weekend with some spectacular drone footage.

The squeaks and grunts whales make are still mysterious, but at least now we know what whale-speak is for "Get that thing out of my face!" That would be thanks to diver/photographer Chris Coates, who had a close encounter of the paparazzi kind while observing humpback whales off the eastern coast of Africa recently.

If you're afraid of swimming in the ocean due to a fear of the unknown below you, you might want to skip over the post. A group of divers off the coast of California got a scare recently when they had an extremely close call with large humpback whales. They almost found themselves in the mouths of the feeding whales, and multiple cameras were there to capture what happened (note: the video above contains some strong language).

Here's a short and sweet video in which underwater photographer and filmmaker Tom Campbell tells of an experience he had photographing a whale shark, the world's largest fish.

Want to photograph or film a humpback whale underwater? Try listening for its "song." The video above, uploaded by YouTube user westh2o, shows a surprise underwater encounter he and a group of divers had with a large humpback whale back in October 2011 (the actual encounter is at 3m20s).

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.

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 …