REWIND
It all started back on a photo shoot in Western Australia last February, when Australian slalom racer Sean O’Brien mentioned he was heading out to the Australian Slalom Nationals at Green Island off the coast of Cairns. The event was being supported by Qantas, which triggered the crazy idea that, with a little persuasion, perhaps they could extend their budget to include a ticket from the UK to allow Yours Truly to attend?
I was more than happy to shoot the event, but had another bigger plan to somehow capture windsurfing on the Great Barrier Reef – one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. I had no idea how we could achieve this goal, but most likely it would have to involve a helicopter and a few crazy windsurfers willing to follow one of my sketchy plans.
Cue the involvement of event organizer Ian Fox, who set about negotiations with the airline and seemed to be on the same wavelength as me regarding the dream to shoot the reef from up above. Some weeks later I received a Skype message from Foxy reading something along the lines of ‘Mark your planner buddy. You’re on the way to the Great Barrier Reef!’
Three months later I was all aboard a Qantas Airbus A380 bound for Sydney via Dubai and then on up to Cairns two days before the start of the event.
Due to the complexities of running the Nationals we were pretty much locked into doing this shoot the day before the event whatever the weather would deliver. Not the easiest challenge – and one that’d certainly test the limits of our planning. And our luck.