Chris Bickford

So much for my half-assed attempts to get closer to the water in my Outer Banks work.   Friday morning I got up early, seeing that the forecast was for light west winds and partly cloudy skies, and headed down to Cottage Row in Nags Head.   The sunset was lackluster but around 8:00 or so, after I’d already headed back up the beach, the sky started doing its thing.   I went down to the beach in Kitty Hawk, and, wanting to get a little closer to the shorebreak, I put on my chest waders, which I had bought a couple of months ago for just such a purpose.   Amazing what just a couple of feet into the water will do.   I got so excited with what I was seeing through the lens that I wasn’t really paying attention to the disorienting difference between the appearance of proximity of the waves through my wide-angle lens, and the actual proximity of the waves.   The shot above was the last picture I fired off before the wave knocked me ass over tit into the shorebreak, my right arm flailing to keep the camera above water.   The camera was relatively unscathed, but I was soaked…I crawled from the surf, my waders filled to the chest with icy cold seawater.   It was rather comical.  Too bad there was no one else there to witness it, or take a photo…

My jeans are still drying on the porch, my cellphone stopped working for about a day, and my old leather jacket looks even older now.  But it got me fired up.  This afternoon I went online and ordered a water housing for my camera, which I’ve been talking about getting for years.   Enough of this namby-pamby crap, pussyfooting around with the shorebreak.  As soon as it comes I’m putting on my full suit, gloves, booties, and hood, and I’m going to start taking those photos I always feel like I should be taking when I’m out surfing and the light is purely transcendant.