Humpback Whales ~ Juneau, Alaska – One of the things that this baby boomer travel photographer has learned is that I cannot control nature’s light to give me the opportunity to capture a perfect photograph with each snap of my Nikon’s shutter.

I would have preferred bright blue skies reflecting in these waters instead of cloudy skies and the green hue of the trees in the background.  Further, I would have preferred to have been on terra firma with a tripod rather than bouncing around in the ocean trying to keep a 80-400mm lens steady.

However, I suspect that these whales would not have set a date to dance in front of me on the beach.  They are going to do their thing.  If I want to photograph them, I must go where they are.

Here you can see five humpback whales moving through the waters of Juneau, Alaska as they were likely gorging themselves on herring, mackerel, or perhaps plankton.

What I like about this photograph, besides the five whales posing for me, is that there is a sense of action in the photograph.  I was able to capture three whale spouts, one tail fin, and notice the birds in the air waiting for the leftovers.

Our guides for this expedition was Dolphin Tours who guaranteed us that we would see whales.  And boy, did they deliver!

I have over 400 photographs to sort through from this whaling expedition.  Stay tuned for more much more in a later post.

Have you ever been whale watching?  Tell us about your experience.

Disclosure: this whale watching expedition experience was provided by the folks at Dolphin Tours.  Further,  this photograph was captured with a Nikon D7000 on loan from Nikon, USA.  We will be producing more extensive future posts on both.