From top: Sperm whale, Domenica; Mother and baby sperm whale below in Dominica; Their whales tails
“When the guide spots the whales you are dropped in their path no less than three hundred feet away. They will often swim with in ten feet of you if they do not feel threatened.”
I’ve known Brad Roaman since we were kids in high school, growing up in New York City. He has always been an avid sailor, sharing his love of the water on his boat with his friends, myself included, from above the surface. When he recently showed me these images of whales he had photographed below the surface, I was mesmerized. Brad is a fashion photographer, and I was familiar with that body of work, but for me this was a whole different level in a whole new environment.
Brad began shooting what he calls “Waterscapes” about a year ago. It began with him photographing his son and friends jumping off the boat from the water. He was shooting on his phone, trying to stay afloat with one hand, and taking pictures with the other. His perspective was just below the surface, water filling different parts of the frame from below. “The beauty of the water”, he told me, “is you never know what you’re going to get, how the water is going to frame the foreground and people in the background”. Read More
