There’s nothing delicate about this shot by Allan Cronin, a finalist within the Wildlife Category of this yr’s Ocean Photographer of the Year Adventure class.
A fur seal will get agency maintain of a New Zealand tough skate, flinging it away from the water in a burst of spray, whereas a crowd of seabirds reveals up for no matter falls their means. The scene is chaotic, visceral and a reminder that nature just isn’t all bunnies and rainbows however, because the poet Tennyson as soon as put it, crimson in tooth and claw.
It’s a terrific image, and a tribute to the endurance of the photographer. Cronin – an ex-electrician turned whale watching information and skipper – was simply offshore from Kaikōura, on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. He paddled near the sting of the continental shelf and easily waited.
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But capturing the scene wasn’t dumb luck: it was his shut observations of the native wildlife that had tipped him off to what may be about to occur.
“We kept a close eye on the fur seals and the birds waiting for a moment like this,” he recollects. “The fur seals are incredible predators and very messy eaters, which causes much competition between the seabirds as they jostled to be closest to the action. But not too close, in case the seal feels like adding a side dish.”
How it was taken
He locked in a shutter speed of 1/2500 sec – more than fast enough to freeze water droplets mid-air and stop a thrashing skate from blurring into a smear – while f/6.3 and ISO500 proved reliable settings for bright open water with plenty of light to spare.
Manual exposure throughout suggests he wasn’t leaving the camera to guess at a scene with this much contrast between dark seal, pale fish and white spray.
Ultimately, though, what made the image a success wasn’t luck so much as a local who understood the food chain well enough to predict it. The seabirds gave away the location, the shutter speed handled the violence of the moment, and the kayak kept Cronin close enough to matter without becoming part of the story himself.
It’s all a reminder that some of the most dramatic wildlife photographs come down to two simple, unglamorous skills. Namely, knowing where to look and having the patience to keep looking.
The Ocean Photographer of the Year contest attracts hundreds of entries from photographers all over the world, throughout classes together with Fine Art, Conservation Impact, Conservation Hope, Human Connection, Adventure and the brand new Ocean Unseen: Hidden Worlds.
Winners can be introduced in September. The award is offered by Oceanographic and Blancpain.
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