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Matinee: 'The Sperm Whales at Bleiks Djupet'
9 May 2026
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 655th in our series of Saturday matinees today: The Sperm Whales at Bleiks Djupet.
This five-minute video from the Barba Project takes photojournalist and underwater photographer Aleksander Nordahl to northern Norway to photograph a distinct population of male sperm whales that inhabit the deep submarine canyon just off the coast of And_ya island in VesteraĚŠlen.
It's one of the few places in the world where deep-sea, large-toothed whales can be seen close to land because it provides a critical year-round feeding ground for these marine mammals.
And it was just the ticket for Nordahl, who had always wanted to photograph whales up close.
VesteraĚŠlen is "very exposed to the weather" and the crew on the silent sailboat waited three days for a weather window to sail out to the underwater canyon. You don't need perfect weather to shoot underwater, but it has to be good enough weather to get in the water.
And that's what they got. Good enough weather.
So Nordahl was able to get down from the sailboat into the dinghy and slip into the water with his gear. It took seven days to get one hour with the whales.
The whales appear all of a sudden, appearing like a ship under water. Nordahl got within 22 feet of one. Which, you might think, is too close.
Nordahl says that's a nice problem to have. You zoom to your widest angle and "start pushing the button," he says. "You almost forget to compose because there's no image to compose because he's filling the whole frame," Nordahl says.
The video was shot by John EikCaffery. Nordahl has published a few stills on Instagram as well.