Photographer Machi Yoshida’s love of orcas has taken her from her native Japan to Bremer Bay and beyond

The first time Machi Yoshida saw an orca, she fell in love. The Japanese-born photographer was just five years old when she first saw the apex ocean predator, also known as a killer whale, performing at an aquarium show in her hometown of Osaka. But she wasn’t intimidated when she came face to face with the massive creature. “It was so big,” she said. “I was tiny, five years old, and that was a big animal. “And I thought it was very beautiful.” The sighting sparked Yoshida’s lifelong “orca obsession” and led her to study marine mammals at university. After graduating, she worked at Suma Aqualife Park in the city of Kobe, where she looked after penguins, sea otters and seals. It was a dream job for the animal lover but working at the aquarium brought with it some complicated feelings. “In the beginning, I was very happy because I was with animals all the time,” she said. “Plus, I made customers happy because they’re coming to see them.” But despite the positive start, she began feeling uneasy about seeing what she felt was too many animals per exhibit, when they could be living freely in the wild. And the impact of seeing the creatures she cared for every day suddenly get sick and die also took its toll. “The penguins look very fine, but the next morning when I would come up to their door, they were laying down dying, and I was so sad,” she said. After seeing several penguins and seals die over her five years working at the park, she had had enough. “I thought that this is enough for me, I can’t see any more animals I loved dying,” she said. “So I decided OK, if I feel sad, maybe I can’t work here forever — so I decided to finish my job.” After leaving the aquarium at the age of 25, Yoshida was unsure of what to do next. She began spending a lot of time at the exhibitions of her favourite wildlife photographer, Hiroya Minakuchi, studying his photos. When one of her friends suggested she visit Canada, where the photographer had captured many of his images, including those of orcas, she decided to go. But there was one problem — she spoke only Japanese and knew she needed to learn English. So in 2014, she spent a year in Canada learning the language, before she embarked on her first expedition to see wild orcas. It was while kayaking in the Johnstone Strait on the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, that she saw an orca in the wild for the first time. “She was so big and beautiful, and she had two little calves and came towards my kayak,” she said. “And I decided, OK, this is what I’m going to do now.” When she returned to Japan, Yoshida began working on orca-watching tour boats during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer season. Eventually, she learnt of a friend of a friend in Australia who was working on a Naturaliste Charters orca tour boat in Bremer Bay. Since 2015, the whale-watching tour company has run tours out to the Bremer Canyon, a series of deep-water rifts running up to the continental shelf edge. The canyon, about 70km offshore from the town, attracts orcas and a huge number of other marine animals — from dolphins, sharks and whale species to seals and seabirds. Wanting to be able to see orcas outside of the Japanese season, she came to Australia in November 2017, going straight to Dunsborough to meet Naturaliste Charters’ owner Paul Cross. “I made a deal with him so that I can come on the boat as a volunteer and help them out, give them all my knowledge and take photos for them,” she said. “So since then, I can come on the boat anytime I want.” It wasn’t until she started working for Naturaliste Charters that Yoshida considered herself a “real” photographer. “Until then I didn’t realise my photos were good,” she said. “But people kept asking me what camera I was using, and then people wanted to share my photos. “If I think back on my life, I had my toy camera when I was in elementary school, and I think I just liked capturing the moment.” Now she is in her sixth orca season in Bremer Bay and goes out on the tour boat two days a week to take photos of the orcas. As well as capturing her signature pictures of “happy” orcas for those on board the tours, the photographs she takes are contributing to ongoing research. She uses her expert eye to identify individual orcas from their dorsal fins and white eye patches to establish their family trees that help researchers better understand their behaviour. Every day out on the boat is different, as is every season, depending on the orcas’ exploits. She said so far the 2023 season had seen the killer whales living up to their name. “This year, it’s been a little bit weird because these killer whales are actually like ‘killer whales’ — they kill the animals. “Usually they kill the animals on the surface, so I could see which species they are chasing, and then how they hunt. “But this year, they are killing it underwater, so we can’t really see what they are killing. “Maybe the currents are changing, or the water temperature is changing, or the food source is moving.” This year, Yoshida is doing something different too. Instead of returning to Japan as per usual at the end of the Bremer Bay season in April, she will travel to Monterey Bay in California for the first time for a month-long stint on an orca tour boat. There she also hopes to see otters in the wild — the creatures she once looked after at the Kobe aquarium, where she was saddened by their confined state. After her time in California, she plans to travel to see orcas in Mexico, before returning to Japan to work on her usual orca tour. It’s a busy schedule, but she said she will go anywhere to see her beloved animals. “I just love them so much, they just make me happy,” she said. “Orcas look the same to other people, but they are different. “Every one is different, they have their own personality.” After Japan, Yoshida will then return to WA for the next orca-watching season in Bremer Bay. She has grown so fond of the town, she said she is even considering staying there permanently. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen,” she said. “What I know is I just want to follow the orcas as long as I can.”