After many attempts to find these beautiful creatures during the 2022 whale migration, including a failed whale watching tour, I was gifted an experience I will never forget.
Whales had been sighted by locals everyday for the past month , however, I had been unlucky coming away without a sighting or being able to find them with my drone.
My wife, son and I arrived at a well known vantage point for watching whales during the migration season. The moment we arrived, a massive mother humpback whale breached right in front of us about 350m away from the shoreline, then almost straight after, her calf breached as well. I was on!
Shaking and excited, I looked to my wife who gave me the knod that she had our boy and I was free to try and capture some shots of these beauties.
I launched the drone and was able to find them both very easily, a huge blessing as this is not usually the case and quite often entire drone batteries can be used just trying to get them on my screen.
I spent the next two hours capturing images and video of this incredible display. The mother showing her baby how to roll, slap the surface with her fins, and how to breach and dive. My heart was pounding in my chest, my hands were trembling as I struggled to keep the drone smooth and steady, and the whales in the centre of my camera's screen. I used up all of my batteries and filled my SD card before they turned and began heading south again, it was as if they knew the show was over and said goodbye.
When I returned home excitedly, my wife and I smiling happily all the way home at what we had both witnessed and discussing how fortunate we had been, I had to wait until after my client work was completed for the day, before downloading the videos and images. It was the hardest days' work I can remember doing but when I finally plugged in the drone and went through what I had captured, this was the jewel in the crown of all whale images I have captured in my 5 years of documenting their migration.
I have shot many whale breaches before and I even shot another 14 breaches this day and have never been able to time the shot this perfectly. For me this shot is as rare as it gets and is a once in a lifetime photograph.
Artist: New Light Visuals
Title: The Breach
Edition: 1/1
