Rome Kirby

SailGP New York

Hudson River

I love this image because I have known Rome Kirby since he was a very small child and his father Jerry is a good friend of mine. I have been photographing Rome in his professional career for quite some time now and seeing him do his first Volvo Ocean race and first the America’s Cup with Oracle. He is an extremely talented sailor and just keeps going from one great event to another while staying very grounded. That afternoon in New York City the light was amazing after an earlier rainstorm that had gone through. The sun popped out behind a cloud and was hitting the World trade Center windows and reflecting a massive sheet of silver light between the buildings over the Hudson River. I asked our photo boat driver if we could be up by the finish as the race boats came flying over the line. As we took off at speed to get up to the mark before the 50ft carbon multihulls there was a massive cloud racing through the sky that was going to squash my great plan to make a picture. Just as Rome and the crew was reaching towards the finish the sun popped out from behind that big dark cloud and lit up the boat and crew. It just made the whole boat explode with silver light from the refection and spray from the Hudson River.

Nikon D5, Nikon 600mm F4, ISO: 640, Aperture: 5.6 , Shutter: 1/2500