If you travel for photography work, you know the difference between images you take for assignments and photographs you cherish and take home to put in your portfolio. If you’re a traveler, you know how differently you feel on a traditional hotel stay compared to when you’re wandering outside of an itinerary, onto the dusty dirt paths and experiences that imbed themselves not just in your mind, but into your own storytelling and into the arc of your life. Here at Tiny Atlas, we know those feelings and we wanted to bring you a column that tells the story of what it’s like to be a pro photographer as well as a title-less cultural anthropologist. We’re calling it Photographer and starting with Southern California–based Shelly Strazis, specifically with her love for and adventures on the islands of Tahiti.
Shelly was sent to Bora Bora on assignment. She was meant to capture the crystal-blue water, the luxurious and stunning over-the-water bungalows, and the silhouettes of Mount Pahia and Mount Otemanu that remind travelers they are in the South Pacific.
She was greeted with amazing resort staff who all knew her name and were devoted to helping her get the photographs she was expected to bring back.
Her first trip to the islands began with a boat ride from the airport across a blue-green lagoon to the Four Seasons. Her days would begin with a jump from her private dock into the clearest waters for a swim. After her swim, she would get ready for work: she’d rinse off, then tie on a local flower-printed pareu, her outfit for most of the whole trip. Over the course of the rest of her trip she went swimming with stingrays and black tip reef sharks, visited the stunning St. Regis, and was treated to a traditional Polynesian breakfast served on hibiscus leaves and delivered by outrigger canoe. She lived on poisson cru, a local salad-like dish made with raw fish, lime juice, and coconut cream.
She fulfilled her assignment. But something else happened. This photographer, who grew up in Florida and had already spent her whole life on the water, fell in love with the water in Tahiti. The shades of blue enchanted her—turquoise, aquamarine, navy, robin’s egg. Shelly remembers feeling that the lagoon was “the epitome of water” and she wanted to keep coming back
Shelly sought out and landed a photo feature covering Tahitian pearl farming in the Tuamotu Archipelago so she could return to the islands. Instead of being greeted with a lux speedboat to take her to her destination, she arrived at Ahe’s small red-dirt airstrip with a coconut shack serving as an airport.
“I had communicated with the farm’s owner by email, but as my plane was landing I realized I wasn’t even sure someone was coming to pick me up!” she says.
As she stepped off the plane, she saw a tall, shaggy-blond surfer approach her. “Are you Shelly?” he said in a dusky French accent.
Soon they’re boating across Ahe’s lagoon to Kamoka Pearl’s rustic farmhouse, the subject of Shelly’s photo feature and about thirty minutes from the airport. Although Kamoka with its commitment to sustainability was a world away from the luxurious Four Seasons, the surrounding lagoon was just as blue. But the wind was constant and the walls of her rustic hut were drafty. At first it was hard for her to sleep, but soon she got use to it, and eventually found the sound of wind and water soothing.
Life on the farm was about work: diving for oysters, bringing the live bivalves up to clean them, and then harvesting the pearls. Daily baths were a bucket of cold water, and food came from a freighter that arrived once a week from Tahiti along with mail and maybe a part needed for a boat motor. Everything was communal. Nothing went to waste.
“I didn’t shoot a ton while I was there,” Shelly admits. “I felt like I should be shooting more, but Ahe is so magical, pure, and untouched. I was just letting myself be inspired by such a huge dose of nature.”
Entertainment was watching fish or octopus from the dock or hermit crabs on the beach. When it was time to harvest pearls, opening an oyster was like opening a Christmas present and finding the most lustrous and colorful gem imaginable. The beauty of the gems was only enhanced by knowing how much love and work went in to farming them.
When the founder of Kamoka Pearl, Patrick, invited Shelly to go with him to the once-every-four-years Marquesas Art Festival, she knew she had to go. She changed her ticket and turned what was planned to be an already epic one-month trip away into a three-month journey.
No airport story here, Patrick and Shelly sailed to the art festival in Nuka Hiva. Once there, the dance locations were often so remote, they would have to ride in the back of a pickup truck for two hours down a rocky one-lane road just to get at the primeval-feeling locations, surrounded by wood and rock carvings and shaded by giant banyan trees. She was brought to the table at a community meal made for hundreds of people with a pig roasted in a traditional ground oven, poison cru, breadfruit, and coconut milk made from hand-shredded coconuts. Everyone brought their own biodegradable plate. Shelly’s was half an empty coconut.
“The songs and drums resonated through my body. I can still hear them in my dreams,” Shelly says.
As a stand up paddler, Shelly knew she needed an assignment shooting the Hawaiki Nui Outrigger Canoe Race, where over a hundred canoes paddle one hundred and thirty kilometers over the course of three days.
“It’s the biggest sporting event in the country,” she says. “It’s like the Polynesian Super Bowl.”
The first leg of this assignment took her to Maupiti, a small island near Bora Bora, where she would follow the local team while they trained for the race. It took time getting to know the racers before I felt right taking pictures,” she says. She spent a lot of time with one of the paddler’s family, developing a friendship with his wife and daughters. They showed her the island and helped coordinate her shoots, which mostly meant capturing how people live.
Maupiti is very slow paced. The bank is open one day a month. Credit cards are rarely accepted, and businesses run on either cash or barter. But the French influence meant Shelly was treated to a whole island that woke up early to walk or ride their bike to the only bakery for fresh morning baguettes. When it was time for Shelly to leave Maupiti for the big race, her new friends said goodbye to her one by one, placing handmade hei (flower lei) crowns and necklaces on and over her head. She was in tears, covered in flowers, and the overwhelming scent of the island.
Following the team in the race meant shooting in six- to eight-foot swells on a fifteen-foot support boat in the South Pacific, all while staying out of the racers’ way and keeping gear dry.
“The Maupiti team were like the Bad News Bears,” Shelly says. “While the flashy teams like Shell had private jet skis and fancy support boats, our team had a kid who jumped off a boat and swam through the open ocean to bring the guys water. Lodging was often in places like the floor of a school room.”
At the finish line in the Bora Bora lagoon, fans splashed water on the canoes as they crossed the finish line and beautiful Tahitian women placed hei over the racers’ heads. The competitors were exhausted and they celebrated the end of a grueling three-day race with their loved ones and fellow paddlers drinking Hinano beers in the lagoon.
“This was so spectacular to witness and shoot and so different than any other race I’ve been to!” says Shelly. “There are so many layers in any culture, but the beauty and warmth of the people of French Polynesia keep bringing me back.”
