This time of year, high-performance powerboat photographer Jay Nichols doesn’t spend much time kicking back at his home in the Naples, Fla., He spent last Friday and Saturday shooting the Tickfaw 200 go-fast boat event in Louisiana. A week before that he was in Arizona shooting Desert Storm. Next week he’ll be on a special assignment across his home state for the second issue of Speed On The Water magazine. A few days later he’ll cross the state again to cover the Super Boat Boat International Cocoa Beach event.

Rolling—and rumbling—on the Tickfaw River. Photo courtesy/copyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image. (Click for expanded for view.)

Nichols never complains about all the time away from home—he knows that being crazy with work is a high-class problem, and he loves his job. On every shoot, he finds something he hasn’t seen before. On every assignment, he makes friends. Being an in-demand go-fast boat photographer is a good gig, and he knows it.

Among his stronger qualities as a photographer? Patience. Enough to wait for the right moment. I’ve worked with a lot of photographers and all the great ones have it. Which is one of the main reasons why there aren’t that many great ones.

“This is the downstream view of the procession on the Tickfaw River,” said Nichols. “I watched them stream out for nearly two hours.

“Every time I’d get ready to walk the 3/4-mile back to the car I would hear more big blocks fire up at Blood River Marina and start rumbling through the swamp,” he continued. “The elevated position on the bridge—I love bridges—made for awesome audio as there was very little traffic.”