We celebrated Hannah’s 12th birthday with a 3 night, mom-daughter camping and canoe trip on the Current River. I used to know this river well, but I haven’t been on it in 20 years. I wanted Hannah to see all it’s wonders. It’s one of the most beautiful spring-fed rivers in the country, and most of the springs are only accessible by water.

It’s a cold river too, because of the springs, and the recent wet weather means that the springs are flowing strong and the river is deep and quick.

Perfect.

And, as long as we’re going, I might as well shoot! I decided to photograph infrared because it’s beautiful and different. But shooting infrared can be challenging. It requires long exposures because it’s capturing a spectrum of light not visible to the human eye. Long exposures means tripods. And to get the right angle I needed to be in the river.

So there I am , waist deep in 65 degree water (at it’s warmest), a quick current, several thousand dollars of photography equipment and 10 second exposures.

Hannah was even braver. She shot underwater video! This is definitely my kid.