Whitewater Kayaking on the Puntledge River
January on Vancouver Island saw a LOT of rain fall. High precipitation brought high water levels and raging rapids to local rivers. During this time, I happened to stumble across some images being posted of whitewater kayaking on social media. On a whim, I reached out to one of the guys who was posting and asked if I could tag along and shoot some photos. It turned out that they were heading out the next day, and Dave was kind enough to drop me a pin of their location and a time to meet up.
The next morning I drove through the rain, following the pin until I hit a locked gate on a logging road. From there, I found a trail that looked like it went in the right direction of their location and took off on foot. I made one wrong turn but after a bit of backtracking I caught sight of the guys down at the river edge and made my way towards them. The forest floor was flooded in places and trees were down after a winter of wind storms. I climbed my way through, getting my boots completely waterlogged before I even got there.
I spent the next hour or so photographing the guys playing on this standing wave. I’d never shot whitewater kayaking before so it was fun to try shooting a different sport, despite the downpour and constant need to dry my camera off. The energy of the water was intense, and the guys looked like they were having a blast out there.
The ambient light was fairly dark so I was using a higher ISO than usual because I also wanted to keep my shutter speed really high to freeze the motion in the water. I tried to get creative with my compositions but was pretty limited with where I could be in relation to the standing wave. But overall it was a great spot to sit and capture the action close to shore. It’s always nice to study a new sport and get to know the movements, peak action times and other intricacies that help to make good photos.
Overall it was a fantastic way to spend a wet morning out in the woods! I had just enough time to run home and change out of my soaking wet clothes before heading off to my next photoshoot. A huge thank you to the guys for having me out, and I hope to join in again next year.
