The Beginning of In And Around The Lake – Following The Photographer

Learning The Waves by Christian & Kara Dalbec

It was 2012 when I picked up the camera. After 30+ years of drinking, I finally put down the booze and picked up the camera (but that story is one for another time). Why I mention this is to give the full picture: I woke up next to Lake Superior. I put down the booze and picked up a Nikon and discovered I was blessed (or cursed?) with the eye of “seeing”. I didn’t know it at first, it took a few years and a lot of practice. It doesn’t matter that it’s 2000 miles from the ocean, where I grew up living on Lake Superior is where I found my true calling.

While learning photography, venturing out to the fresh water shores of Lake Superior, I came to Stony Point. Nestled in-between Knife-River and Duluth, on a random day in December I was looking to shoot* some ice. I just so happened to see something out in the water, surfers! I didn’t really think anything of it, but I grabbed some shots anyway. This started happening here and there. Finally one day, a mutual friend connected me with a pilot, who offered to fly me above Stony Point on a big wave day (while she practiced stalling out…..). I got to shoot the surfers from above.

After that flight, I became more interested in the different angles I could find to shoot surfers. I started showing up more and more to “the spot” during big storms. During one particular storm, I asked a couple of surfers to stand on a rock and get sprayed by a big wave so I could take a picture, surprisingly they said, “No Problem!” I won a contest with that picture and formed a friendship with those surfers that’s become closer and closer over the years.

It wasn’t until 2015, one of my fans on Facebook sent me a link to Ray Collins, an Australian water photographer. It was a link to a video of how he captures waves from inside the water. At first I thought it was incredible. But then I started thinking about all the expensive equipment it would take. So I shot it down as an idea… but it kept creeping up in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I grabbed my Go Pro, bought a cheap 2-piece wet-suit and drove to Duluth to try to capture the Lift-Bridge in a wave. Capture it I did. Freeze I did too.. The major downside was the quality of the Go Pro at the time (the originals didn’t produce high quality images). But I knew then, I had to invest in the right equipment and do it all again!

With the right equipment, I thought I was a water photographer. And after swimming with the surfers a few times, I thought I knew what I was doing. Oh boy. The end of December of 2015 brought a storm that was *a little* bigger than the others. I swam out to the big reef to get a wave picture. I swam past a surfer named Laddie, while he was shaking his head. But I thought I knew it all!

That day in December 2015 I got to experience the phenomenon known as “The 3 sisters”, in a way I never had before. Ignorant and inexperienced I got to the reef, which was in itself quite the swim. And here came the 3 sisters, each standing 10 feet tall. And there I was, not knowing how to “duck dive” and only swimming, I laid flat to point my head into the wave and down it took me. For a long length of time I thought it was all over for me. Then Bam! I popped up and was gasping for that breath of air, and was able to grab one, right as the second wave came to take me down again! Same thing. But after the second wave, I lost a fin. I popped up again to grab one breath of air, and with one fin on my feet and a big camera in my hand, I went down. With only one arm and one foot, I struggled under the waves. By that time I was washed a little closer to shore and the 3 sisters had finally “left the building”. I made it to shore and, with one fin, and my head hung low, walked away thinking I would never go back in that lake. I couldn’t help but remember the plane ticket I had just bought for Hawaii, leaving one week from then. I had almost drowned! I sat, looking at my friends out there, having mountains (or waves?) of fun. I knew I had to figure it out. So I went to YouTube.

After that humbling experience, I did go to Hawaii. Carefully. I listened to the locals and learned some of the basics of water photography. I don’t know if I am a “Water Photographer” yet, but I am a photographer that loves the water. It’s to the point of becoming an addiction, I want to be out in the water every day.

With Instagram, social media and even car commercials popularizing surfing, it’s becoming pretty popular all up and down the great lakes. The North Shore of Lake Superior being one of the most unique and dangerous spots of them all. The best waves are in the middle of winter, when the air is well below zero, the snow is blowing side-ways and the water is in the mid 30s. Sounds like paradise, right? – just make sure your wet-suit is thick.

It’s such a unique location that Surfer Magazine, Vans, Hurely and Carhartt have been showing up to make movies and clips. Through the last few years, I’ve been lucky enough to capture Alex Gray, Dane Gudauskas and Dylans Graves both in and out of the water. Kevin Stein even brought Carhartt here to make a video of us.

The Pros left to right: Alex Gray, Dane Gudauskas and Dylan Graves

The whole crew out there is a blast to be with. There is nothing better than teaming up with a surfer. My “teammate” is Jake Boyce (of Day Tripper of Duluth). Jake will charge any wave on the lake and I trust him to “high-five” me on the way through. We would all be lost without Erik Wilkie with his forcasts and predictions. He keeps us all up to date with what’s happening in weather and waves. It’s interesting how all these guys are all completely different types of people, from different ends of the spectrum. They can all come out here, gather together in one spot on these 39,000 square miles of freshwater and charge waves together. They’ve accepted me as one of the surfer’s (even though I don’t surf) and I’m so thankful.