Shooting in the water is at times super frustrating, but the rewards can be so worth the effort. I get a lot of questions on how this image came about so I invite you to click below to read the story behind this image.

For those of you who know my family, you are aware that Zack loves to surf and has since he was a little kid. When he got his first sponsor, he needed images on a steady basis. Mind you, this was before Instagram was even born and we were striving for inclusion in surf mags. Since I loved to shoot and he loved to surf, this was a perfect segue into the world of surf photography.

I shot a lot of images from shore, and then tried my hand at in the water shooting. Being a lifelong swimmer and former water polo player, jumping in the water with Zack held no limitations and only the promise of good times. Getting the photography dialed in, however, was another story!

We shot on and off for a number of years with mixed results. Part of it was positioning, part of it was weather, and part of it was those darn water drops! Zack is goofy so he prefers to surf lefts. That means that more times than not, he was surfing with the sun at his back. In other words, I had to set up looking right into the sun. Any drop of water on the housing would reflect the sun and ruin the shot. So we would try and try again.

After a number of sessions, I learned exactly where to set up to be in position for a critical move or barrel shot based on Zack’s style. The first image above was taken on one of those magical days when everything lined up perfectly. The sandbar in front of the house was firing, the sky was clear so the lighting was spectacular, and the water had taken on a gorgeous shade of green. When we headed out, we could almost feel the electricity in the water!

He surfed, I shot, and we hooted and hollered because it was just such a ripping day of overhead barrels. You see, Coronado faces south and on this day, Hurricane Rosa was pushing up hard from Baja. The swell was hitting the autumn sand bar and creating wide, gorgeous barrels.

So let’s look at this photo again….

Zack had taken off, did a nice bottom turn and then stalled slightly until he slid into the barrel. I was shooting with a wide angle lens at about 16mm. At the moment of this picture, the tip of his board was about 2 feet away from my camera and closing fast. Keeping my finger on the trigger and my left hand sticking out of the face of the wave, I ducked to my right into the wave and out of danger. Zack zoomed past as I was lifted by the force of the wave and sent flying to the bottom. When I popped up through the foam, there was Zack with the look on his face asking “did you get it?” It’s the perfect moment between father and son; surfer and photog!

I’ll probably always remember this session (actually 2 sessions since we went back for more in the afternoon) because it was so fun. Working hard with your son to be in perfect symmetry while in an ever changing environment is incredible rewarding because you both have to be on your A game. After each session, we would fast walk home, pull the camera out of its water housing, and start scrolling through the hundreds of images, seeking the elusive nuggets. We may never again have that perfect day coinciding with our schedules, but the Rosa Swell is like a siren call that gets us out there every chance we get!