Like my first model of this season, Claudia Lorena was someone I had not met before. I had originally planned to just use one new-to-me model this year and even though I had already booked Kim into that first slot, I really liked Claudia’s enthusiasm about doing underwater work. Fortunately we were able to make it fit into our schedules and we were able to shoot in early August.
One benefit to not being the first model I shoot in a season is that I will have hopefully worked out the kinks that inevitably pop up in that first session. That was indeed the case this time. I fixed the small camera issue that I had experienced while shooting with Kim… but then experienced something that was potentially much worse.
A leak in my underwater case.
This is the number one fear for anyone who shoots underwater. I started to suspect something was going on when I noticed some condensation inside the case, and when we took a break I discovered a fair amount of water in the bottom of the case. What I did next was probably not the wisest thing: I cleaned everything out and then continued with the shoot. The leak appeared to be very small and I figured that if paid close attention I’d probably be OK.
The shoot progressed without a hitch and much less water leaked in than before (I probably did a much better job of sealing the case this time). But at this point I had no choice but to consider the case to be expired and I ordered a new one the next day.
But hey, that’s a lot of words about a plastic camera case and almost nothing about the photos! Claudia has a very elegant look that really comes through in a striking way. Equally impressive, she took to the underwater environment almost immediately; it was as though she had been doing this for ages.