Big as a Bus

Weighing in at around 36 tons and as big as a bus, Humpback whales are a wonder of nature.  They typically travel around 25,000km each year, spending the summers feeding on krill and small fish in polar waters before migrating to tropical or sub-tropical waters in the winter to breed and give birth, which is where most of their positive interactions with humans occur.  Prior to the International Whaling Commission ban on commercial whaling in 1966, however, their interactions with humans weren't so great as their population had been decimated by 90%, but since then numbers have recovered to an estimated 80,000.  Over the next couple of months there are a couple of events celebrating these gentle giants, World Whale Day on Maui, Hawaii on February 15th and Whale Fest in (lovely but not as tropical) Brighton, UK, over the weekend of March 14-16.  Later this year there will also be a meeting of the IWC, and I for one sincerely hope that the conservation of whales and other cetaceans continues to be an important issue amongst the myriad of problems facing the world's oceans.     

Beneath The Waves

Brad running a pro-lap back along a remote beach (just a seasonal fishing settlement) littered with debris following a tropical cyclone.  Al-Ashkara, Oman, 2010.

I checked my e-mails on Thursday afternoon and found, to my great delight, that one of my images (shown above) had won the best image award at the Beneath The Waves Film Festival Falmouth event.  I was really made up…I think it's perhaps the second time that I've submitted images to a photography competition so to win and have my work exhibited was a real honour.  The e-mail was to check that I would be attending the event, which was starting in less than four hours...  Luckily Falmouth is just down the road so I made it there in time for the intermission between films and got to enjoy the second half of the evening before making a brief, awkward, appearance on stage next to a wall-size projection of one of my images.  

Better on the other side of the camera. 

The Beneath the Waves Film Festival is an annual event held in Savannah, Georgia, USA, with the aim of encouraging, inspiring and educating scientists, advocates and the general public to produce and promote open-access, engaging marine issue documentaries.  It shows documentary films covering topics such as marine conservation, plastic pollution and ocean ecology whilst providing a platform for scientific discussion.  Each year there are a series of mini festivals held internationally, with the Falmouth festival coinciding with World Oceans Day (yesterday, June 8th).

Looking around the exhibition space at The Poly, Falmouth, I was really astounded that my image had been selected for the top honour; there were some incredible underwater images and marine photography that captured such a wide range of the issues found around the coastline of the UK.  The winning short movie is well worth checking out, and I would really encourage you to click this link through to Sonia Shomalzadeh's website to watch it.  Sonia is an artist based in Falmouth who produces enormous and beautiful images of whales drawn in the sand on local beaches; visible for just a single turn of the tide.  The video captures her working close-up, walking the beach with just a pointed stick, before pulling back to a viewpoint on the cliffs above from where the grand enormity of her efforts can be appreciated. Her work is spectacular, take a look.

The incredible sand art of Sonia Shomalzadeh.

This was the first year that Beneath the Waves has been hosted in the UK and, judging by the packed cinema, it was a resounding success.  Enormous thanks to Lucie, Sarah, and Phil (who is the brother of an old friend of mine and who I haven't seen in perhaps fifteen years, small world huh) who organised the event, and congratulations for putting on such a great show.  If you're around any of the cities listed on the poster below on the dates that the festival is being hosted then please go along and help to support and spread the word of marine conservation.