I realize it’s still about 2 months until whale season returns to Maui, but I chose this shot for the set of photos I used to place an order of MiniCards from moo.com last week. While you’re able to choose up to 100 different photos, I opted to start small with about 2 dozen.

This shot was a crop from a larger photo, since it would be almost impossible to purposely compose and correctly time a shot like this on your own. That is, unless, you speak whale and find one that wants to cooperate.

The beautiful thing is that since I shot this with my 12.2MP Canon Rebel XSi, there is still enough detail and resolution to make a crop like this which retains ample clarity and detail without looking too blurry. Certainly not something you can say about digital cameras from as recently as a few years ago.

And while I won’t be seeing any whales next week when I make it back to Maui for the Maui Photo Festival, I have no doubts that I’ll have plenty of other magnificent subjects to shoot while I’m there. After all, I wouldn’t be visiting the island for my 5th time in 3 years if I could take the same photos in my own backyard, would I?