Big Air
As "they" sometimes say, "Go big, or go home." These alternatives don't really apply to humpbacks breaching in Alaska waters. After all, they are already home. And breaching humpbacks, typically about 50 feet long and 50,000 pounds in weight, are almost the embodiment of going big. And sometimes they even seem to get big air.
But even attentive on-scene whale watchers don't get to photograph, or even see, every breach. Breaching humpbacks don't break the surface predictably as a matter of timing or location. The first notice of a breach may be the crash and splash of reentry, and by the time a viewer turns and gets a camera pointed in the right direction, the aerial display is over.
Here is an example: viewers were looking and pointing cameras in a different direction when the whale came out of the water, and the first shot in the sequence is barely in frame and not focused. The other frames show a lot of splash and the displacement of a lot of solid blue-green water. This is the very dynamic aftermath of an unseen breach. This is sometimes all people get to see and get to photograph. One breach, and nothing to show for it.
But other times it all works out, and you get frames of a humpback going big and getting big air, as in this sequence:
A falling humpback displaces a lot of water.
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After a lifetime of mainly expressing myself with words, my postings here will mainly rely on images. They will speak for themselves to some extent, but I'll usually add a few comments of explanation. I've taken photographs for decades, since the 1950's, inspired in part by my father's photographic skill. Four years of photo assignments and quality darkroom time eventually gave way to decades of casual and family picture-taking. I re-immersed myself when I left film and turned to digital.