The Wave Photographer – Part 1: The Swell

"It does not care about your deadline," said Inês.

"It's enormous," said Hayley.

"Yes. That is rather the point."

They stood on the cliff beside the old fort at Nazaré, in a gale of salt and spray, with the whole Atlantic heaving below them. The waves rolled in out of a grey sky in colossal walls of water, five storeys high, topped with streamers of foam, crashing onto the beach in booming explosions. The air shook. The crowd on the cliff roared with each wave. Far out, a tiny speck on a jet-ski towed a surfer into a monster.

Inês, thirty-four, a big-wave photographer, was short and wind-burnt, in a battered orange parka, with a shaved head, a scarred nose and a monstrous telephoto lens balanced on a tripod. She had photographed these waves for nine winters. Hayley, thirty, a travel writer from Melbourne, tall and sandy-haired, in a borrowed raincoat, had flown in that morning for a magazine piece.

"Where do I stand?"

"Here. In front of me, a little left. You will not block the shot."

"I've never seen anything like this."

"Nobody has. Not really." Inês bent to her viewfinder. "Wait. There."

The wave rose, a mountain of black-green water, towering, slow, impossible. A surfer, a speck in a yellow wetsuit, dropped down the face, tiny and perfect, carving a line across the glassy slope. Inês's camera clattered in a burst of shots. Hayley stopped breathing. The wave broke with a thunder she felt in her chest.

"Did he make it?"

"He made it."

"He's alive?"

"Always. They are trained." Inês glanced at her, amused. "You are crying."

"It's the wind."

"It's the wave."

She laughed, dashing her eyes with her sleeve. All afternoon they stood on the cliff, in the roaring spray, watching, shooting. Inês explained the swells, the tides, the way the great underwater canyon funnelled the sea into one terrible point. Hayley took notes, her pen blotting in the wet. By dusk, the light had turned copper and the waves glowed.

"Can I ask you something?" said Hayley.

"Yes."

"Why do you love it?"

"Because it is always bigger than me," said Inês. "It is restful."

"Green?" said Hayley, a flag, a wave.

"Green," said Inês, with a quick grin. "Very green. Come. I will show you the lighthouse."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Lighthouse Platform.