‘Being in the water with this sleeping whale was an amazing experience’

Being in the water with a sleeping humpback is an amazing experience. But even as it slept, this whale was aware of the photographer’s presence. How? Via a cool trick of its brain...

Sweet dreams: the snoozing humpback. Picture: Zeke Laing

Here’s a fun fact about whales: when they sleep, they split their brains in half.

One hemisphere of the brain remains awake, overseeing vital tasks such as breathing and staying alert to potential threats (the eye connected to the awake hemisphere stays open), while the other hemisphere enters a sleep state.

The two brain halves take turns in this way to get some shuteye. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “half asleep”, doesn’t it?

This shot, a finalist in the inaugural Gold Coast Photography Awards, shows a humpback – a “young one, about 12m long” says photographer Zeke Laing – snoozing off the coast of Burleigh Heads during its annual migration. Every year, round about now, humpbacks start to journey north from their feeding grounds in the Antarctic, heading for the ­subtropics where they’ll mate and give birth. Young males – randy teenagers, if you will – are usually the front-runners in this 5000km migration to the epic warm-water party, which will last until the humpbacks start the return journey in about September. Laing shot this whale (which has a bunch of remoras hitching a ride underneath it) as it slept 300m off the coast; whales in this state are said to be “logging”, because they float at or near the surface like a log.

Laing’s own brain gets split in half, too, in a way. For two weeks at a time the 35-year-old is a FIFO worker in the metal mines around Mt Isa and Cloncurry in Queensland’s Gulf Country, working on technical challenges as a “shot firer”, or explosives expert; for the other two weeks he gives full rein to his creative brain as an underwater photographer. He especially loves to photograph humpbacks because “they’re such charismatic animals”, he says. Being in the water with a logging whale is a rare treat, Laing adds; usually humpback encounters are fleeting affairs as they barrel past you. “I kept my distance, of course, but being able to spend time in the water with this one was an amazing experience. Even asleep, he was definitely aware of my presence.”