Swimming with a Killer Whale
![](https://thewayitwas.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Killer-whale-with-trainer-at-Windsor-Safari-Park.jpg)
Fancy diving beneath the waves to clean the teeth of a killer whale?
How about riding on his back as it leaps through the water, like a bucking bronc?
Nor me neither!
Although, in the 60s I swam with one whilst taking photographs of its trainer, Doug Cartridge, working with the animal at Windsor Safari Park.
It was a memorable shoot.
Here are some of the pictures I took using a Nikon F with a 135 lens for the surface pictures and a Nikonos fitted with a specially designed 21mm lens housing for the underwater ones. The film was Kodak Tri-X rated at 800ASA for the u/w photographs and 400 for the ones on the surface. It was a fairly overcast day, so the surface images were captured at 1/250th second at f8 and the sub aqua ones at 1/60 and f4.
![](https://thewayitwas.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Killer-whale-with-trainer-at-Windsor-Safari-Park-300x241.jpg)
![](https://thewayitwas.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Trainer-playing-with-killer-whale-at-Windsor-Safari-Park-300x219.jpg)
![](https://thewayitwas.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/232.-Killer-whale-with-trainer-mono-copy-300x212.jpg)
![](https://thewayitwas.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Killer-whale-being-ridden-2-300x239.jpg)
![](https://thewayitwas.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Killer-whale-being-ridden-Windsor-Safari-Park-copy-300x232.jpg)