paddling dreams

When I photographed local entrepreneur and Adventure Chatham owner, Justin Labdon, in the spring for the Boston Globe, he told me about the night supping adventures he was beginning to offer. As a stand up paddle boarding enthusiast myself, this immediately captured my imagination and knew that I wanted to photograph it. What I love so much about stand up paddle boarding is its ability to transport one, surrounded by nature, to a quiet, meditative state. So what could be more magical than having that experience on a moonlit evening? I also knew it could be visually beautiful although I wasn’t sure how well it would photograph because of the low light conditions.

Justin attaches specially made LED lights to the base of the board which illuminates the water below allowing the paddler to see all manner of fish otherwise invisible in the darkness. That night, the moon was full, there was no wind and it was still quite warm out on this late September night. The paddlers headed out of Sesuit Harbor in Dennis, MA at around sunset and standing on the jetty photographing down, what I saw was even more beautiful and surreal than I was expecting. I thought I’d share a few photographs from this extraordinary night.