December 22nd, 2016 - I actually came to the beach this day to shoot with my good friend Natalie. We shot a little on Ocean and 7th and before we left we decided to go check out what was going on near the pier on 1st. What I saw I didn't expect at all. Nearly a hundred people on boards, with a clean and glassy swell churning up in the line up. These weren't even huge waves or anything but the fact that they were decent sized and that they were so clean and long blew my mind.

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We hardly ever get a decent swell in Miami - it's usually as flat as a lake or really choppy and messy after a tropical storm. The fact that I had dozens of people on boards to shoot made my heart race and I couldn't contain my smile. I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning.

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You see the reason I got into water photography in the first place was because of surf photography. I remember scrolling through hundreds and hundreds of photos of surfers and surf breaks all around the world and being inspired by these incredible images. I never saw any waves like those growing up in Miami and it astounded me. Even long boarders on smaller waves...it still felt like I was looking at another world. 

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This day was so special to me because for the first time, I got the capture the magic of that world through my own lens.