Goes with Danger in Paradise no1
January 2014 saw one of the biggest surf events in many years in Hawaii. I went to Lumahai river mouth beach on Kauai to shoot the waves crashing onto the point for the local TV weather segment, but happened to capture a near drowning. I was recovering from recent surgery and standing safely on a 3 foot cliff above the sandy beach. As those of us who live near the ocean know, but visitors are blasé to, is if the ground is wet, waves have been there. On this very wide beach visitors were walking and standing on the wet sand. As expected, every 20-30 minutes a set of waves rolls in on top of each other raising the apparent sea level much like a tsunami. I saw this coming and yelled "Grab the little girl" that was away from her mom, but couldn't help her so I shot the event. She was shook up but not seriously hurt. The 2 shot sequence better shows the girl under the water. This shot is shown often on local Hawaii TV to remind visitors of the dangers of the ocean. Each year there are many drownings mostly due to not respecting the ocean's power. Nikon D800 70-200 f2.8 at 150mm ISO 400 f 10 1/800 sec with only contrast, dodging and burning in photoshop. I don't have model releases due to the crisis and usually not needed for news photojournalism.