It was a perfect, golden-light morning on the Sea of Galilee that day. Our dear friend (who knows practically everyone in Israel) had arranged for a local fisherman to arrive at the shore by our hotel before sunrise. These things never seem to go quite as planned—but—it was 5:45 AM and around the corner came our fisherman.
I wanted to take a lot of shots of him just fishing, but I wanted to capture him and his boat and nets looking into the rising sun over the Galilee. I needed to be out with him, but I could not be in the boat. There was the rub: I had not arranged for another boat to follow the fisherman from a distance.
A man who was staying in our hotel gestured (no English) that he would be glad to row me around out there. Where was his boat? The eastern sky was pregnant with that pre-delivery glow of light. He pointed to a small, no, a very small item that was more like a large apple crate or a small bathtub, than a boat. I didn’t have any choice. We both climbed in and with our combined weight the sides of “the boat” were nearly to the water’s level.
Notwithstanding, my oarsman rowed me out towards the fisherman, but on the wrong side. He thought I wanted the light to be shining on him with my back to the rising sun. I signaled in fast and swirling hand motions to turn around and I made the international symbol for shooting into the sun to create a silhouette—whatever that is. He got it.
Within 30 minutes I had taken more than 600 shots. The scene was stunning. The images were magical.
In this particular shot I wanted to capture the gentle motion of the oar as it slid into the water and splashed the warm water into the glowing sunlight. The fisherman was rowing in a circle and dropping his nets as he did so. This angle and moment perfectly captured what I had desired.****
From these same waters, Jesus not only called James and John, Peter and Andrew, but here He would also walk.
