CASTAWAY

I had long dreamt up ways in which I could capture this particular image! It was technically challenging and had quite a few barriers to capture. For example, there were giant coastal redwoods overhanging a 150 ft cliff above a churning sea and no way to safely get down to where you could set up for a shot without ropes and customized equipment to make the shot possible, not to mention the grove of poison oak surrounding the area where one would want to shoot from. To top it all off, I needed moody dark skies and an angry sea to convey the scene as I wished capture it. Fast forward six years and I finally decided that it was now of never. I went and acquired a few necessary items for safety and custom built a mechanism that allowed me to get my camera ten feet off of this cliff! Then I hit the road! The weather was supposed to be stormy and moody with a North West swell of eleven feet… I was excited and nervous all at the same time! Once down to the location, I put my harness on, found a solid anchor point and got everything ready to begin my descent to the cliff edge where I set up for the shot! Light was beginning to fill the atmosphere with a glow through the light rainfall and the waves crashed below me, I could see the silhouette of the sea stack before me and I began to take test shots to see if everything was going to work. After a few tries, I was getting the hang of it, all while hanging roped into my harness at the edge of this cliff! As light begin to bring justice to the scene, I began capturing epic moments of wave action and after a few incredible swell sets, I had captured the perfect shot! Once back in a safe place, I was elated to see the images on the back of my display, they were incredible! It was only then that I looked to my feet and saw the swath of poison oak sticking up below me, for the next month I suffered from multiple lesions and itching that kept me up many nights! I can confidently say that it was all worth it and finally, I had the shot that I have always dreamt of capturing!