Winners Gallery
2nd place Human Connection Award: People & Planet Ocean
Yifan Ling USA
"On April 1, 2024, more than 20 Bigg’s orcas entered Puget Sound together," says Ling. "At Point No Point, one of my friends was on the beach watching as the pods passed, when T099C “Barakat” - a male orca - suddenly began breaching repeatedly near the beach. At one moment, he leapt from the water just metres away from my friend. Although her lens was too long for the closeness, I happened to be offshore and captured the perfect shot for her, and this shot perfectly reflected the connection between the wild orcas and land-based whale watchers in Puget Sound."
BEHIND THE LENS
Yifan Ling China
ABOUT THE IMAGE
- Calm, sunny day
- Early afternoon
- Site accessed by boat
- F/7.1, 1/3200s, ISO 500
Yifan Ling is a Seattle-based wildlife photographer specializing in the transient (Bigg’s) killer whales of the Northeast Pacific. With a background in engineering, he is known for his precision in identifying individual orcas and documenting their behavior through high-resolution imagery. Inspired by the decline of the AT1 pod after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, Yifan uses each encounter as an opportunity to collect detailed data for research. He donates his images royalty-free to institutions monitoring orca populations, with the goal of preserving their stories and supporting conservation efforts before other pods face a similar fate.
