Ocean Photographer of the Year accessibility - Winner

Audio description

Transcript

The Ocean Photographer of the Year is awarded to the most compelling and beautiful image submitted to the competition. It is chosen from all entries.

Winner Rafael Fernandez Caballero

30 year old, Spanish born Rafael Fernandez Caballero’s images have won numerous national and international awards. Caballero is a diving instructor and does workshops and photography courses all over the world.

Location Baja California Sur, Mexico 
Equipment Nikon Z9, 8-15mm fisheye lens, Isotta housing, 6 inch glass dome, two scubalamp D-Pro max strobes 
Settings 1/400, f/10, ISO 640 
Image size 143.5 x 143.5cm

Wall text 
A Bryde’s whale takes a bite. “A feeding frenzy is the biggest show on earth for me. The smallest animals on the planet, plankton, attract bait balls of sardines and, in turn, giant whales show up,” says  Caballero. “I was lucky to witness this show off Baja California Sur at the end of 2023. Due to El Niño and warmer temperatures, different species joined the party and I witnessed huge numbers of beautifully coloured dorados and large groups of sea lions that were attracted by the bait balls. The highlight was this whale coming out of nowhere with its mouth wide open.”

The photographer was able to access the site by boat. It was taken in the morning, while snorkelling in good weather, (the sea was 25 degrees), at the end of 2023 during the Mexican sardine run.

Bryde’s whales grow to approximately 12m long and weigh up to 30 tonnes.

This is a blue-soaked, open-water image of a Bryde’s whale going in for a bite of several hundred smaller fish clustering together to the immediate right of the whale. Light streams in from the top of the image, painting the water in soft, vertical streaks. Behind the Bryde’s whale, at the top of the image and some way away, watery shadow-fish glide, camouflaged by the sun-flecked plankton water.

The whale is lunging at a bait ball. Its big body rising head first from deeper water in the bottom left. Its broad, grey tail is almost black. The curved tip of a dark-grey dorsal fin catches the light on its smoky-grey back. The whale’s pale underside is steeply angled.

A thin, pointed flipper on its side is underscored by the start of a collection of many lines of deep throat grooves. At the corner of its V-shaped, open snout, on its lower jaw, etched lines fan out into a handful of deep markings. A small, hooded eye is half-closed on the side of its wide, flat head.

Inside the whale’s pointed, open snout is light-coloured smooth , concave and toothless.

Gummy, white and grey jaws surround a triangular opening, cast in shadow.

The bait ball scrambles away from the wide, V shaped opening. The whale is striving and a section of water remains between it and its prey – a dense cluster of black and silver sardine bodies managing to evade an approaching, gaping fate.

At the top of their tight scrum, fish are turning and diving down. Underneath, they collectively surge and twist clockwise, flashing with reflected light. The fish in the bait ball furthest from the whale are surging away to the right. Lower down, an oblivious, larger fish, noses off.

The sun-striped deep water is dotted with floating, light-coloured flecks.

The ocean continues in all directions beyond the edges of the image, offering us a sense of endlessness.

This is the end of the audio description. 

Want to know more? A tactile copy of this photograph is available to touch, behind you (if you are facing this image) and on the entry wall.

Continue further into the exhibition, close by, on the narrow end of this wall you will find a tactile image for 1st place Fine Art Photographer of the Year Henley Spiers. There is a tactile floor tile to guide you.

Tactile panel description

Transcript

The Ocean Photographer of the Year is awarded to the most compelling and beautiful image submitted to the competition. It is chosen from all entries.

This is the winning entry, by Rafael Fernandez Caballero please feel free to touch and explore.

A Bryde’s whale is lunging at a sardine bait ball. Its big body rising head first from deeper water in the bottom left it has its mouth open, the bait ball is scrambling away.

If you would like to listen to the full description, a tactile tile is located beneath a QR code in this section.