Another refreshing post to cool off this summer:
Off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, lies a large whale feeding area, the National Marine Sanctuary Stellwagen Bank, where from May until October a great many whales, mostly humpback, come to feed and play. Going out from Provincetown on the tip of the peninsula, several companies offer whale watching trips, that are very much worth doing.
I had been on a whale watching trip close to Cape Town, South Africa, a few years earlier. I can tell you, that there are some very important things to keep in mind, if you want to photograph whales :
- take a large boat! You are less prone to seasickness when in a larger vessel. The first time around, I had been in an inflatable dinghy in rather rough seas dancing on the waves, which was not good.
- use your long lens sparingly! If you constantly look through a long tele zoom searching for disappearing whales in the waves, your seasickness will get worse and worse, even in calm waters. The horizon will swing up and down much more and to such an extent that it will only take minutes before you want to seek out a quiet side of the boat and forget about your photographer's goals...
Having learnt those lessons first hand, I did not get any good pictures on my first trip out ...
I made up for those mistakes on the trip off the Boston coast.
A stunning experience was, when a group of whales came towards our ship, dived underneath - and came up on the other side!
A very eery situation staring down from the railing, when the sea next to the ship's wall suddenly turns bubbly and light green ...
The big animals continue on their way like small battleships or submarines and leave us stunned and exhilarated.
We also saw Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins
Enjoy!
Off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, lies a large whale feeding area, the National Marine Sanctuary Stellwagen Bank, where from May until October a great many whales, mostly humpback, come to feed and play. Going out from Provincetown on the tip of the peninsula, several companies offer whale watching trips, that are very much worth doing.
I had been on a whale watching trip close to Cape Town, South Africa, a few years earlier. I can tell you, that there are some very important things to keep in mind, if you want to photograph whales :
- take a large boat! You are less prone to seasickness when in a larger vessel. The first time around, I had been in an inflatable dinghy in rather rough seas dancing on the waves, which was not good.
- use your long lens sparingly! If you constantly look through a long tele zoom searching for disappearing whales in the waves, your seasickness will get worse and worse, even in calm waters. The horizon will swing up and down much more and to such an extent that it will only take minutes before you want to seek out a quiet side of the boat and forget about your photographer's goals...
Having learnt those lessons first hand, I did not get any good pictures on my first trip out ...
I made up for those mistakes on the trip off the Boston coast.
Breaching whale
Rolling whale
Blowing
the blowhole
Plenty left-overs for the gulls and terns
A stunning experience was, when a group of whales came towards our ship, dived underneath - and came up on the other side!
A very eery situation staring down from the railing, when the sea next to the ship's wall suddenly turns bubbly and light green ...
and the next moment a whale breaks through the surface ...
The big animals continue on their way like small battleships or submarines and leave us stunned and exhilarated.
We also saw Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins
Enjoy!
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