The moment a friendly dolphin showed up to play in the waves with a surfer turned out to be a photographer’s dream come true.
Shelley Lynch was out on New Smyrna Beach, Florida, at sunrise when she captured a stunning scene. “That morning, I saw the dolphins surfing the waves to my left, and I saw this young surfer to my right heading for the water,” she said.
“I thought to myself, ‘Get in there! The dolphins are playing.’ He stopped at a tide pool to check out several starfish and I’m still thinking, ‘Go get in the water!’”
Eventually, the young man entered the sea and the dolphins swam to him; one in particular coming closer to the shore, then surfing the wave right next to him.
The dolphins stayed around the surfer, who was about a half mile south of the jetty, for about 10 minutes. His mom was on the beach.
“It looks like he was looking at me,” said Shelley, “but he was trying to get his mom’s attention. I was screaming with excitement as I snapped the whole experience.”
Shelley, a PhD. and master’s graduate with a part-time clinical mental health counseling practice, is not your typical photographer. Talking to The Epoch Times, she explained how she approaches it as a form of therapy:
“My intention with photography is to remind people about the healing power of nature,“ she said. ”To unplug and be in nature is helpful to calm the nervous system, let go of stress, and restore balance.”
The photographer, who’s from New Smyrna Beach but grew up in Indian Rocks Beach on Florida’s west coast, had an unusually profound route into taking pictures. In March 2016, her husband, Roy, died suddenly.
“To heal, I spent the first year paddle boarding every day at sunrise before work,“ she said. ”I was going through the motions of life but not really living.
“April 2017, Roy came to me in a dream and said, ‘I’m taking you shopping to the mall, to the Canon store. I want you to have a Canon professional camera for Christmas.’”
Shelley, who until then had only taken pictures with her phone, woke up feeling excited that her husband had visited her, and about getting a camera. Two weeks later, after doing some research, she went and bought her first piece of kit.
“He truly knew the camera would breathe life back into me,” she said.
Shelley started shooting tentatively.
She began just snapping sunrises and birds at first, she says. When one day an egret walked the beach with her and she took several photos, “it was really fun,” she said. That same egret came each day for a couple of weeks.
The love affair grew, and that first year, Shelley taught herself, photographing the sunrise every day.
She also continued having vivid dreams—often predicting upcoming events.
“I had another dream where I was in the water at sunset photographing orcas,“ she shared. ”At the time, I knew dolphins came into the river where I live so I walked into the water at dusk and much to my surprise the dolphins came and I photographed their tails with cascading orange water from the sunset.”
It was so fun that she has kept this up almost every day since. “Now, the dolphins include me in their pod, introduce their babies to me, and throw me fish,” she said.
Shelley’s remarkable journey led her to make a short documentary, “My Invisible Husband,” sharing the story of Roy’s sudden death, the dreams, her entry into photography, and evolving relationship with dolphins.
Roy was a trained craniosacral therapist, whose aim is to help calm the nervous system and body to let go of trauma. Shelley credits him with the discovery of her talent.
“He is the reason I am a photographer,” she asserts. “When he came to me in the dream, he knew I wasn’t really living.
“He was just as passionate about helping people feel better, and I feel we are doing that together now through the photography and the documentary.”
About a week before capturing the iconic surfer and dolphin shots, Shelley had another dream that dolphins were surfing in the waves at sunrise.
“The next day, I expected to see them,” she said, “but it took five more days for the dream to come true.”
After the event, she approached the young man’s mom and told her she had photos. Later, at Christmas, they got together and surprised her son with a collage of photos from that day.
“He was very happy with the gift” said Shelley, remembering the moment and the morning itself.
“I was very excited for this young man! What a wonderful experience for him.
“I enjoy watching who dolphins will interact with; it is definitely a conscious choice for them.”
Shelley says that, while she often witnesses dolphins approach people in the Indian River Lagoon and hears stories from surfers that it happens a lot in the ocean, she has only seen it one other time herself.
Her husband, Roy, watching over her, must be extremely proud.
