Snorkeling With Whales With Photographer Bryant Austin
Check out the stunning picture below of snorkeling with whales by photographer Bryant Austin.
Photography by Bryant Austin (reproduced with permission)
Bryant has been working on an amazing project. He snorkels and freedives with whales all around the world for extended periods, creating some completely unique photographic images that are the first life-sized high resolution prints of whales. He has been taking these huge, beautiful, detailed images to whaling countries to help move folks to support the stopping of whaling.
Photography by Bryant Austin (reproduced with permission)
"It was at this moment, when Austin locked eyes with the mother whale, that he realized what had been missing in the field of whale photography and conservation, an emotional connection…mammal-to-mammal, species to species."
His stories of the personal connection he feels when looking eye to eye with a whale are something I can understand, from several personal experiences.
When I was pretty young I had an amazing interaction with a Beluga Whale. I was probably nine, and I recall looking into the eyes of that whale and seeing such an obvious intelligence. And it was more than just intelligence. It was in inarguable sense of connection, interest and consciousness. It changed my life. And the fact that that whale then played hide and seek with me for about ten minutes, with obvious enjoyment, sealed the experience. Many years later I was sailing alone in the rain in the San Juan Islands of Washington. It was quiet and calm, with a light sizzle of rain on the water, and I was just drifting along. Then a seal popped up next to my boat and stared me in the eyes as I slowed drifted by. And once again the impact of that stare, of the clear sense of another consciousness within those eyes, was instrumental in my love of nature.
So I applaud Bryant's work and am a bit jealous also (as well as slightly unnerved by the idea of being that close to those giant creatures).
Photographically what Bryant is doing is also very interesting. He creates these big pictures by taking a series of individual pictures down the length of the whale and then he stitches ten or more pictures together to create one huge, high resolution picture, all with a Hasselblad H3D 39 mp digital camera and a standard lens. He will then spend up to 100 hours putting the image together in a computer.
Play the video below to learn more about his work.
