PHOTOGRAPHER CAPTURES NATURE’S VIOLENT DISPLAY
Praise for Canadian photographer Dave Sandford’s stunning images of Lake Erie is rippling in from around the globe. The London, Ont., native spent hours snapping the eight-metre wind-sculpted liquid mountains which rose like leviathans, before crashing in a furious maelstrom. Sandford makes a living in pro sports photography but, he says, his passion has always been water.
Q HOW DID HE GET SO CLOSE TO THE ACTION?
A When the fabled gales of November arrived this year, bringing wind gusts of 70 km/h, Sandford drove down to Port Stanley, Ont., climbed into his wetsuit and started shooting. For some sessions, he was in the water; at other times, the conditions were too treacherous and he shot from shore. The waves generated by wind were three metres high. But when they rebounded off the pier or were multiplied by an undertow near shore, some grew into eight-metre monsters. He shot for an entire month, as often as three times a week for six hours at a time.
Q WHY IS HE SO DRAWN TO WATER?
A Sandford has captured Stanley Cup game-winning goals, Olympic ski jumpers in flight and NBA players in mid-dunk. But shooting the water was a return to nature photography, the reason he fell in love with the medium after receiving his first camera when he was nine. “Nature never ceases to amaze me. I think it’s the most wonderfully amazing thing ... My earliest memories have always been lakes and oceans. I’ve always been around them.”
Q WHAT FEEDBACK HAS HE RECEIVED?
A In just a week, the images drew 438,000 viewers on boredpanda.com and thousands more who liked them on Facebook or shared them on other social media sites. He has fielded media questions and reprint requests from across Europe, Australia and North America. A rock band in Uruguay wants to use one photo on its next album.