Not every project starts with a client brief. This one started with my wife deciding to swim over 3km of freestyle across Lake Monate, and me deciding to follow her the whole way on a SUP with a camera.

Monate isn’t just any lake for this kind of thing. It’s regularly ranked among the cleanest lakes in Italy and Europe glacial in origin, fed by cold springs, and with motorboats banned entirely, which keeps the water calm and clear enough that it’s become a genuine destination for open water swimmers, hosting official races like the Traversata dei Pionieri. In summer, the water warms up enough that a long swim stops being an endurance test against the cold and becomes something closer to pure pleasure.

Watching her work through it stroke after stroke, fighting fatigue without ever losing her rhythm is exactly what open water mentality looks like. Every meter earned out there deserves real respect, and I was genuinely proud following alongside her.

I shot it on the Nikon ZR with the Sigma Art 85mm f/1.4 DN (E-mount), adapted with the Megadap ETZ21 Pro a longer lens than I’d usually reach for on a SUP, but it let me hold distance without getting in her way while she swam.