Mark Drawbridge recently took the top prize in Tamron’s “Summer Rituals” photo contest, a competition that requested photographic submissions that captured the true essence of summer. Not only did Drawbridge’s image of two kids frolicking in the Southern California surf perfectly capture this summery spirit to beat out the other great scenes of backyard barbecues, summer camp, and fireworks extravaganzas—it also expertly merged his two favorite types of photography. “My main focus is nature photography, and a really close second would be sports and action photography,” he explains. “I love this interaction and capturing the motion and behaviors of people and animals.”

The winning photo emerged from a progressive series of images Drawbridge took over a span of many days this summer. “It was hard to select the best of the bunch,” he says. “I picked this one to submit, though, because I think it captured the action and the jubilance on the face of the boy in the foreground.”

The photographic series Drawbridge documented took place at Cardiff State Beach in Southern California. “It was a fun evolution,” he says. “The boy who’s not very visible in the winning image is my son. Over the course of the summer, we had purchased a small inflatable raft, and he and his friends got into this routine where I’d drive them down to the beach and they’d go on the raft and get pummeled by the waves. On the day I shot the winning image, I took him and one other boy to the beach. The raft itself, however, was a drab gray color. I wanted to get a little more color into the image and give the boys something different to try, so I stopped by the store and picked up some cool colored inner tubes instead.”

For the midafternoon shoot, Drawbridge had a polarizer on during the initial trials for his setup. “The polarizer created some interesting effects,” he says. “But with the housing I had placed over that filter and the lens, it caused some funky reflections, so I actually ended up not using it.”

The composition was similarly challenging. “It was tough to control because I was holding the camera without looking through the viewfinder,” Drawbridge explains. “So my main objective was to get in as tight as possible and get both boys squarely in the image. I set the camera to ‘Servo’ mode and clicked away.”

Because he wanted to get right up close to his young adventurers, Drawbridge housed his camera body in a protective case. “This allowed me to get right into the action in the water,” he says. “I was using a wide-angle lens, so I was just a couple of feet away from the boys—they were both pretty aware I was shooting them, since I was standing so close to them and trying not to get run over. However—and this was impossible to control—you can see the water droplets on the protective cover for the lens. It was a double-edged sword: In one way, I think this adds to the images because it shows you’re right there in the water, but in some of the images it covered up the faces of the boys. In the image I finally chose, I was fortunate because the young boy’s face is visible through all of those water droplets.”

The best part for Drawbridge, however, about capturing this summery scene was its spontaneity. “Every wave that came in would cascade the boys in all different positions and flip them over,” he says. “We never knew what each wave would bring. Plus, working with young children is always fun, because they’ll bounce right back up and want to jump in and do it all over again.”

For more of Mark Drawbridge’s images, go to www.drawbridgephotography.net.