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The right look, by Richard Robinson, New Zealand. While the whale calf investigated him, Robinson’s main challenge was to swim far enough away to photograph it. The encounter in Port Ross lasted 30 minutes. New Zealand’s population of southern right whales, known as tohorā in Māori, were hunted to near extinction by European whalers in the 1800s and then by Soviet whalers in the 1900s. Now protected, the population has bounced back from a small group. including just 13 breeding females, to more than 2,000 individuals. (Photo by Richard Robinson/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022)
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