Leif the Young Photographer - North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii - January 5, 1985 - Almost 10 years old

Leif began to be interested in photography when he was quite small, even back in Japan before he was 8 years old. By the time we lived in Hawaii, he had a Pentax pocket camera of his own, as I recall, but liked to borrow my Minolta SLR to try fancier lenses and shots.

It's on Oahu's North Shore that some winters the giant waves up to forty feet high come rolling in, those incredible waves you see in surfing films that no one else in their right mind would try to go out in. One winter when we lived there, the waves were up, in January 1985. I've already written about Leif scaring the daylights out of my when he skipped out into the bay on the coral rocks after one of the huge waves receded. He could have been washed away when the next one came in.

But he was also having a great time taking pictures, and I caught this photo of him when he positioned himself in an alcove and was snapping away. He loved those immense forces of nature.