Photo of the Week: March Week 2009 3

     Hi Gang! Marty Snyderman here. Captain Steve has asked me to participate in the Photo Of The Week (POTW) portion of Hawaiian Rafting Adventues' new web site, and I am honored to do so. Three weeks ago I particpated in Whale Week with Steve, his crew, Robyn Irwin and Tyler Korte, and some Hawaiian Rafting Adventures' clients who were from all over the place. Our purpose was to take pictures of humpback whales for researchers so they could match our images with an existing data base of images and gain some insight into the population of humpback whales off of Maui. In the wintertime Maui is the center of humpback research, and the week was great fun. It coincided with Whale Fest on Maui, and hopefully we will do it again next year.

     In any case, I decidied to kick off my POTW participation with an underwater picture of the eye of another species of whale, a southern right whale. I took this picture off the Valdez Peninsula in Argentina after shooting part of a film for CBS entitled Dolphins, Whales and Us. Of all the things I needed to get this picture, the two most important were a coopertive whale and a dry suit. The Valdez Peninsula is about as far south of the equator as Vancouver, Canada is north. In other words, the water was cold. And the wind was howling. I was working with Howard Hall (Just saw his new IMAX 3D film- definitely worth seeing!) and Bob Cranston. While working with the whales we were either as cold as we have ever been, or we were having the absolute best time of our lives. At times southern right whales- especially the calves and moms- get rather curious about divers, and when curious they followed us like pets.

     I took this picture with a Nikonos camera back in the days of film, and I had to swim back to the boat repeatedly to change film. Every time I returned to our skiff, the whales came with me. Change film, flip over the side, and once again I was looking at a whale. It was a crazy day! This shot of the eye is one of my favorites from that day. I was roughly four feet away from the whale, and was completely absorbed in watching the whale watch me. I took a light meter reading on the water and tried to match the intensity of the light from my strobe with ambient light. I was able to shoot several frames from only a few feet away from the whale's face, and this is my favorite. The "whitish" area over the whale's eye is known as a callosite. They are a common feature in southern right whales and can be used to distinguish between individuals. Hope you enjoy the picture!