This is the last image I plan to show from my sub-Antarctic expedition. It is a small part of the King Penguin colony at Lusitania Bay, Macquarie Is, extending more than a kilometer along the foreshore and into the foothills, and estimated to number 180,000 birds. The industrial artefacts are digesters used in the nineteenth century to render down and extract oil from seal carcasses. After the seals were decimated, the sealers turned on the penguins, killing up to 3000 per day. It has taken 100 years for the seal and penguin colonies to recover from this shameful exploitation. Now the penguins are again under threat from a rapacious multinational fishing industry.
Canon 5DIII + 300 mm f/2.8L II + 2x III extender, hand-held.
Av priority with evaluative metering, f/8, 1/400 sec, ISO 1600, exposure compensation +2/3 EV.
Processed in DPP: crop, adjust brightness (-0.50), saturation, sharpen, RAW-TIFF. PS Elements: downsize and sharpen, TIFF-JPEG.
Thanks for looking, critical feedback welcome. Thanks also to everyone who has taken the trouble to give feedback on my earlier posts in this series - I have learned a great deal and appreciate your encouragement and advice. Regards, Ian.
Hi Ian, thats a whole lot of penquins, and I can just visualise these guys stretching a kilometer along the shoreline. I like your choice of comp, layering the frame between foliage, penquins, and the sea. Great to see a few having a swim too.
I think this image is simply amazing in its content.
I with the rusty digesters were a bit more off center but that is a minor nit.
I think your images from this trip were wonderful and I really enjoyed your information about the birds.
What a trip!!
gail
Farewell to the King Penguins of Macquarie Island
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. Well done, the images from your expedition are amazing
