Elessar
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The next few photos concentrate on my attempts to catch one or a few dolphins mid-leap. Living the maxim "memory is cheap" to the fullest, I probably shot somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 frames of dolphins trying to get "the one." Because the leap of a dolphin happens so fast, about half of these were easily deleted right away as a failed attempt, and many more were deleted once I got home and saw them full screen.
The first pair of photos are some of the ones I took of dolphins bow-riding. For those of you who have never had a chance to experience it, dolphins enjoy surfing in the wave created by the bow of a ship as it cuts through the water and this behavior is called bow riding. It is clearly the dolphin's choice to do so as they are so much faster and more maneuverable than the ship that one (or often several) will dart in and out of the bow wave at will. For these two photos, I am leaning over the rail of the bow and literally shooting straight down at the dolphins.
The first shows a dolphin just coming to the surface to breathe. As you can see from the trail of bubbles, dolphins actually begin to exhale shortly before surfacing. They then expose the blowhole to the air, inhale deeply, and sink beneath the surface again.
As shown in the second shot, it is not unusual for a dolphin to completely leave the water as it takes a breath. As is also shown in the second shot, I needed a wider angle lens than what I was using at the time.
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