Wildlife Photo Competition 4 2018 : Entry Number 46

Magnificent. You win this round by a full length. The beautiful tones and detail, the graceful allure of the whale, the so simple composition and faultless monochrome of the vast dark depths all come together to make this very pleasing image. Well done, extraordinary work!

What a tremendous and amazing honor to have my image of an adult humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) selected as the top image. My name is Shane Keena and I am based in Redlands, California. For this image we were swimming with a pair of whales off the coast of Ha'Apai in the Kingdom of Tonga when this whale began slowly ascending to the surface. This magnificent creature slowly went vertical giving me a couple of seconds to reset my focus points and switch to portrait orientation. Canon 5D3, 16-35 f/2.8, Nauticam housing, Zen 230 Dome port. Processing in Adobe Camera Raw, Nik Silver Efex Pro Thank you again for this wonderful award and kind words!