Behind the Print: Wave of Love
On the morning of October 3, 2018 there was an unusually early season swell that was quickly rising on the North Shore of Oahu. I started the day with a surf check at Rocky Point and while watching the waves, received a call from my Mom who was back in Ohio. She told me that my Aunt Carole had a complication with an angioplasty surgery and they weren’t sure if she’d get better.
This was completely unexpected and I wasn’t sure what to think. I was stressed out but assumed she’d turn around for the best and didn’t truly realize how bad she was.
During the late morning I decided to hop in the water at Pipeline and it was one of the best sessions I’ve ever had out there - bright blue water, sunny, and perfect waves. It was then that I captured my print "Wave of Love", shot at Off The Wall, a break just past Pipeline. I remember looking around and noticing that the other photographers, much more tenured than myself, were not paying attention to what was right in front of them. No one else had their cameras up and when I decided to snap the shot, the timing was absolutely perfect.
When I got out of the water I had a voicemail from my Mom saying that my Aunt had passed away.
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I always looked up to my Aunt Carole. She was from a small town called Mechanicsburg, located between Dayton and Columbus Ohio, with a population of around 2,000. I swear there are more cows there than people haha sorry Dad. Despite coming from such a small town setting, she was very well traveled and lived in big cities like New York City and Los Angeles. But above all she was always most proud to live in Washington D.C. That is where she worked on the Reagan and Bush campaigns and became the chief of staff for his secretary of commerce. She was a lifelong writer and ended up publishing two books - travel guides aimed at the masses who love to trace history as they explore the British Isles. She became an example to me - an entrepreneur who left Ohio to pursue her dreams. She was someone I could look up to and inspired me, especially early on in my photography and videography career. I miss my Aunt Carole's spunk, her sass, her humor and playing euchre with her (an Ohio card game, the OG's will know). I'm really glad that I have this beautiful reminder of her in am image: Wave of Love.