About The Shot
Moorea, Bahamas/ 2023
We didn’t have a boat to get to this location in Moorea, French Polynesia, but the conditions were too beautiful to pass up. The weather was calm, the sunset was lining up perfectly, and we knew we had to find a way out there. So we rented a kayak in the late evening and paddled offshore, fighting strong current the entire way to reach this shallow sandbank filled with Blacktip Reef sharks and stingrays. What I wanted to capture in this image was the feeling of French Polynesia as a whole, both above and below the surface. The towering green mountains, the cotton candy clouds glowing from the sunset, the crystal-clear shallow water, and the marine life calmly moving beneath us all in one frame. Places like this almost don’t feel real when you’re standing in them. As the sun dropped lower, the sharks continued circling the sandbar while stingrays glided silently across the bottom around us. The result was this moment, peaceful above the surface, wild below it, and one of my favorite memories from my time in French Polynesia.