Continuing in our underwater portrait adventures, we went a bit more thematic this time around as we tested the pool that I hope to use for future shoots. The theme was a songwriter’s dream. Our lovely model Katha, moonlighting here as our subject is a singer songwriter in the real world. We wanted to take the dreaminess of underwater photos and add them to her dreams as a songwriter. You can see the empty music pages and the floating pen in parts of these shots. We didn’t take into account how quickly paper will disintegrate in water, next time we will try to use papyrus. Once we blew through the small amount of music paper, we shifted into straight underwater portraits.
We learned a few thing on this adventure. Bring backups of every cable you own, because chlorinated water destroys cables that make flashes go pop. Noon is a terrible time to photograph underwater, shadows are harsh and no shade for the pale photographer. Sandbags are awesome, as that is my new underwater anchor. Optical triggering works, yeah! Need less ambient to really make use of the optical triggering though. Run on sentences, fun.
Still searching for the best way to add light to our subjects. If you have any suggestions I am all waterlogged ears!
–JB
Josh loves a good adventure and some of his favorite wedding and engagement shoots have involved “getting crazy” or going somewhere special to the couple.
Josh is a Texas native and long time Pflugerville resident. He started his photography business in 2009 and has never looked back. His photo business even allowed him to be daddy-day-care before his two sons reached school age. Over the years his business has expanded to include just about every type of photography including automotive, editorial portraits, corporate events, sports and food. Through it all, he has continued to love wedding photography for genuine moment, the fast pace and the diversity of subjects it offers. Josh is a co-founder of North Austin Pfoutographic Society and a resident instructor at Precision Camera & Video in Austin, Tx.