look out below
Sep 03
by David in Underwater 0 comments

Underwater Ballerina: Sara

I always love when I connect with people through interesting channels and my August 2012 shoot with Sara certainly qualifies. So, exactly how did she end up in our pool that summer day? Let's review:
  • For the past few years, my wife and I have had a twisted relationship with musician Amanda Palmer. And by "twisted relationship" I mean that whenever she's in town, we fix a big backstage meal for her and the crew. I really don't think she'd bother performing in Seattle any more if we stopped doing this. Seriously.
  • Through Amanda we have also gotten to know Seattle musician Jason Webley. I've known of Jason for many years, but it's relatively recently that we've actually known him. We've extended our food preparation talents to some of his shows as well.
  • Last November, Amanda and her husband (some hack writer) did a show in Seattle, followed a couple days later by Jason's big farewell-for-now show. It was quite a busy week; Carol even made a birthday cake that was delivered to Amanda's husband on stage.
  • At some point prior to this I told Amanda that she was going to be a participant in my Ant Farm project. Notice I did not say "ask" because sometimes you just have to tell people what they are going to do.
  • A couple days after Jason's show, there was a nice wind-down potluck dinner held at Jason's parent's house. Amanda and I decided that this would be were we would do the photo shoot. There weren't exactly a lot of places in the house were we could unobtrusively take naked pictures, but we found a spot in the hallway at the top of the stairs. Add that to the long list of places in the world where Amanda has been naked.
  • Naturally this caused a bit of "hey, what was that all about?" conversation and I ended up talking about the project to a number of people. One of them was a young woman named Sara who said she'd definitely like to be in it. I gave her my card and asked her to get in touch with me as soon as it was convenient.
  • A few days later Sara was at the house for the Ant Farm shoot. The moment she went up on her toes en pointe I said "Uh, this summer I want you to do underwater photos with me." She said OK and we left it at that.
  • Eight months later we were in the pool. She brought a birdcage.
Simple, huh?    
Read More
Sep 02
by David in Underwater 0 comments

Second Underwater of 2012: Claudia Lorena

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.
Read More
Aug 14
by David in Underwater 0 comments

First Underwater of 2012: Kim Jonet

In the five years I've been doing underwater work, I think this is the latest in the season that I've posted images from the first photography session. Between scheduling issues and the overall late arrival of summer weather, the first session didn't happen until late July. This year I set out to work with one or two models who were new to me, so to kick things off I set a date with Kim Jonet, whom I had not met previously. I was very intrigued by the fact that she already had experience with working underwater because I suspected she'd bring a lot of fun ideas to the session, and in fact she did! She also brought one of the largest collections of outfits and props that anyone has ever arrived with, and I think we might have worked through only about 10% of it. The first session of the season is always tricky for me because I typically have forgotten one or two things that I had learned the previous year. Sure enough, this time I completely forgot about a specific camera setting that would have made my life a bit easier, but now it's doubtful I'll ever forget about that again. Thanks, Kim, for helping me get this season off to a great start!
Read More
Jul 16
by David in Underwater 0 comments

Preview of 2012 Underwater Season

Once again, summer has taken its sweet time getting to Seattle. But now that it seems to be settled in for a bit, it's time to hit the pool and get some underwater shots! I always make a point to test my underwater case a couple weeks before my first scheduled shoot just in case anything happened to it while in storage the past nine months. Like I always do, I sealed it up without the camera inside, put on some goggles, took it underwater, gave it a squeeze and watched for bubbles. If I can squeeze bubbles out, that means water has a way to get in, so I absolutely do not want to see bubbles. Sadly, there was in fact a stream of very tiny bubbles coming out of an area that I had repaired two years ago. I really did not want to see that. Careful examination revealed, however, that there was in fact not a new leak. Rather, the epoxy that I had previously used had broken down and was starting to flake away. I cleaned it all off, mixed up a batch of new epoxy (a different brand than I had used before), and resealed it. A follow-up test performed a few days later revealed all is well! (But how's that for a good lesson? A piece of equipment that had been in my cabinet untouched for nine months still developed a problem. Always test your stuff before you actually need to use it!) Equipment is, of course, only one of the components needed for a successful shoot. It also helps to have models! This year I wanted to accomplish two things: 1) scale back the overall number of shoots, and 2) only use models I have not worked with previously. The reason for the first item is that in previous summers I've simply done too many underwater sessions and then felt a bit rushed when doing the processing. By limiting how many I do I hope to move at a more relaxed pace... hey, isn't that what summer is supposed to be about? The second item is a bit of an experiment, an attempt to just mix things up a bit. The models I have lined up have different backgrounds and only one has done underwater before. I'm really looking forward to the wide variety of ideas, looks, poses, etc. that I expect they'll bring. As always, thanks for reading. If all goes well, I should have the first galleries up by the end of July.
Read More
Recents