Published July 2, 2021

Now that we're getting back to some sort of normalcy in this world, I can get back into my passion, which is photography and all its aspects! Reflecting the past ten years of learning editing techniques/composition/posing/everything else related to getting a good overall has been a fun time. Of course, I'm not stopping any time soon, but it's gotten to the time where i've been wanting to what is considered more of  "art" than just a "picture". I've loved the facet of story telling in one shot, and I know i have a long way of mastering it, but this past weekend's adventure was a good step in that direction.

Let's preface this with a TikTok video I discovered involving underwater photography and a swimming pool. (Check it out here!)It involved using a fish tank and its buoyancy to keep the camera dry, as well as leave a clear enough shot of underwater. This has been a long-time dream of mine, but with the cost of an underwater case for a camera being the same price of the camera itself turned me away countless times, especially since I've kept this passion of mine as a hobby and not a job.

Alright! Now that we have that out of the way, the shoot was during the middle of the day, when the sun was brightest in the sky. Why do we do that? Well, since water diffuses light and the only way to get light is through the surface of the pool,  we wanted to get as much light as possible to come into the pool. Since this was my first attempt at ever taking photos underwater, I played it safe and left it to our good ol' sun to light everything we needed.

My lovely friend was willing to dive into the pool and attempt this pose for a good hour to get everything correct. Kudos to her for being able to dive into the water, hold her breath, and angle her body in such a way that the camera can get a good shot! Please note that this shot was one of 400 we took, and there was a lot of trial and error.

Though we had the pose right in camera, there was a lot of post editing that needed to be done as well, especially air bubbles that can cause a lot of distraction. It was tedious, but definitely worth the effort.

If there were any takeaways is to always be persistent and not give up so easily! It was definitely a fun first (and not last) experience shooting underwater. I definitely want to get more creative and introduce OCF (off camera flash) and get really creative with lighting.

Check out the before/after image below after post-processing. Until next time!