Photojournalism III

Me and water seem to have a love hate relationship so I tend to keep a wary eye out when on the job. One early incident, despite the wary eye nearly ended in disaster, then I suppose for a photographer, in a way it did. On occasion, off shore storms can cause some rather large surf so on one such day I was off to the heads to hopefully capture some action.

After 10 good minutes standing on the shore to spot the best and safest place to shoot from, off I went working my way across the rocks and driftwood. After about 15 minutes and a crowd of people well behind me all gathered to watch the waves, I setup, dropped my kit and got into it.

The shot above was one of many waves to bounce of the heads so as I framed this through the viewfinder, my minds voice was saying "yeah that's the one, Great". As I lowered the camera and saw the wave (yes the one above) roaring towards me, I realised this was a bit bigger than the ones previous. "Great quickly turned to "SHIT". With only enough time to brace myself, the wave hit and swept through at knee height, myself on the verge of being swept off my perch.

After the water had shot passed, feeling damn lucky to still be standing (lack of swimming skills) my first thought was to get the hell out of there. I spun around reaching for my camera bag only to find it was no longer there, Once again "OH SHIT" (just louder) and there it was floating out in the channel. Waiting for the water level to drop I managed to wade out and hook it with a stick and yes, when I opened it up I thought I saw a fish swimming around in my 70-200. $5000 worth of gear drowned and to add to the heart break, I now had to tell the boss.