So there’s this pretty french girl who was dodging my camera for 3 days, while I was shooting for the Malabar river festival. On the 4th day, was in a precarious position in the water, just below the most famous rapid, called the Malabar express. So this french couple decide to climb it, and are checking out the rapids from 15ft in the air. She sees me downstream, and says, hey take a photo of me, and then this happens.

On a side note, they are on an extremely slippery rock, which I couldn’t climb in the first place. The rock ahead of me, covers the fact of how high they really were. Plus there’s really strong winds blowing, and the most famous rapids in Kerala to fall into. This plus the fact that she got into the competition on day 1, with that being her first time in a Kayak, shows how incredibly brave she is.

Photographer tip :

Always have spare battery and card space in your cam, even at the end of the shoot. This happened when the race was over, and I was in the water for 20 minutes waiting for he next contestant. All alone in the river with no communication with anyone, meant I didn’t know when the competition got over. I got a few more tricks that she did, which I will put up later, but this was the first one, and the best.

Oh and make the best of what you have. I was on a 70-200mm lens, which couldn’t frame them correctly with the rapids seen. I couldn’t run back to get a wide-angle lens, so shot this, and a close up for backup.