Shooting a Wilderness Canoe Expedition

Looking back it was a little more than two years ago that a producer, Tim Joy, hired me to shoot a 5-day wilderness canoe expedition. Just to begin meant 11 hours of driving north from my already rural home in Pittsfield, Vermont to lake Temagami.  Then a quick boat trip to the island that served as base camp. In my career, I have shot hundreds of subjects in hundreds of locations, and I find every single one unique and exciting - but this ranks among the top 15 along with shooting for Landrover in Sabi Sabi, documenting traditional Greek weavers in small mountain towns, and interviewing Richard Branson on his island.

5 days with no cell service, living 100% outdoors rain, sun, bugs, and all. Capturing the struggle and triumph of a group of amazing young girls as they learned to paddle and portage heavy canoes and gear through thunderstorms, mud, rocks, and sunshine.  To set up camp, cook over a fire, and "up and roll" every morning.

Today, after I got this week’s episode of the podcast out, I needed to reignite the creative spark. So I dug up this footage and put together a little video. ( In the original footage there are lots of close-ups and faces, but this was shot for a client and I don’t have the rights to those  - so it’s all blue skies, rainy skies, and water. )