Every summer my wife and I and our two pups camp at Camden Hills State Park. During our trip this past July, in the midst of a heat wave, we paddled for an hour before cooling off in the water. I had my Nikonos IV, a waterproof 35 mm film camera from 1980, with me as I dove in. When I surfaced, a boat was passing by in the distance.

I love how the red boat pops against the blue and green background. The camera uses zone focusing, so in order to get the scene in focus, I had to estimate the distance from the boat to our location. I used Portra 400 film and had it developed and scanned by Northeast Photographic on Westport Island. There’s something about the grain in this shot that perfectly encapsulates a Maine summer. The warmth of the day baked in the film.