What do you do when your parents insist on renting a condo for a full month on Maui? You go visit them for 12 days and sleep on the sofabed, which doesn’t cost you anything. You bring your laptop to take care of as little work as possible, and only if absolutely necessary. You catch up on blogging. And on Campari sodas.
This breaching humpback whale animated gif is from a stop motion sequence of photos I took on a previous visit. There’s even a bonus whale doing a head lunge on the left. While I was taking the photos, I didn’t even notice him!
This is what it’s like on Maui from November to May. The humpback whales use Maui as their breeding grounds, and Alaska and the West Coast of North America as their feeding grounds. The waters around Maui are warm and like a giant, pleasant bath tub for baby whales.
The photos for this animated gif were taken from the beach. I can sit there and watch the whales for hours; definitely had to sit around with my trigger finger on the camera button for a long time to capture this full breach. Nobody really knows why whales breach; whether it’s play or a gesture of threat or dominance appears to be subject to debate. I like to think it’s an expression of joy and exuberance. The whale just wants to fly. And make a big splash. Who doesn’t?
A continuous line/maze type drawing. This is a fun and meditative exercise I’ve invented. I start with a line and I have no idea where I will end up or what the drawing will look like, but the challenge is to just draw one single line and connect it to its starting point eventually. Then I start filling in the complex but single shape I’ve created. I was trying to capture the humpback whale’s playfulness here, not draw an anatomically correct representation.
Another example of a single-line drawing. I actually have a slight red-green colour blindness, which is probably why I go for intense colours.
