Time, Creativity and Boundaries.
In that order.
That’s what it takes to create an image like this.

Firstly, you need time, and plenty of it, to understand light. 

You need to know where the sun will be at a certain time of year, how it will cast its light on backgrounds, how it will create contrast, and how from different angles it will illuminate your subject. 

Most especially, you need time for a completely wild animal to swim into the area you have defined as being a suitable canvas on which to create your desired work. 

Next, you need to go through a process of identifying through your own style what works best for you, and how with the given ingredients you are able to bring your desired look and feel to the fore. 

I love shooting into the light. Had I flipped my position around and shot with the light at my back this would quite simply have been a lovely wildlife image, which is great, but not what I am after.

Creatively I look to hero my subject. In this case it all importantly meant getting down extremely low to the sea surface so that I could break the horizon line with the whale’s tail. This is in itself is a challenge as you need ideal conditions and a specially designed platform that allows you to essentially get at water level to your subject. This also comes with risk as saltwater and electronic gear are not ideal stable mates. 

I also revel in pushing boundaries. I see no point in taking 100 photos a year that are maybe eight out of ten, or even nines. I would rather take one or two ten out of tens, or even risk none at all in the pursuit of exceptional. 

Pushing boundaries in this case meant heading out to sea at 03h30 am for almost 17 days in a row during the peak of Cape Town’s summer. This was to allow us to locate the humpback whales in the pre dawn. I then needed to predict where they may swim to in order to be in the right position at sunrise to catch that narrow window when the light kissed my subject but still painted the sheer mountain behind it black.  

Finally, to create such a look and feel required heading out into extremely strong and windy conditions that created a ruffled sea state and caused the plume of water flowing off the whale’s fluke to do so in an engaging manner. 

When all these different components came together, I was finally in a position to take the “lucky” photograph.  

Available Sizes
Exhibition: 173 cm x 115cm (68”x 45”)
Large: 146 cm x 97cm (57.5” x 38”)
Classic: 118 cm x 79cm (46.5” x 31”)

Available Editions
Exhibition: 12
Large: 12
Classic: 12