Well, as poetic as I may have made that sound, it turned out that our summer weather has stuck around for a few bonus weeks. But even though the warm and dry days have remained longer than anyone would have guessed, I resisted all urges to squeeze in any additional shooting, thereby ensuring that this was in fact the last session of the season. Let it be known: Summer 2012--as measured by my underwater shooting schedule--did in fact conclude at the end of August.
I first met Nina a couple years ago when she took part in my Common Thread project. A year later she was one of the first to volunteer to be in the Ant Farm, in which she donned a shocking red wig and stuck a very animalistic pose, one that most viewers tended to linger over when they were looking at the project. After the Ant Farm shoot, we started talking about doing some underwater work, and many months later it finally happened.
One thing that was very different about this shoot relative to others is that we did not run through very many different outfit/prop combinations. While this may have reduced the overall variety of the shots a bit, it gave me a lot more content to work with within each style. Even though I ended up taking fewer shots than I typically do, it ended up taking me longer to sort through them Funny how that works.
The final thing we did was play with the red rope from the Common Thread project, which turned out to present its own set of challenges. The rope was annoying buoyant and kept trying to do its own thing. Bad misbehaving prop! Still, Nina was able to wrangle it into submission; there was no way we were going to let the rope win that day.
And with that, I bid farewell to the 2012 underwater season. I set out with the goal of doing relatively few shoots, and I managed to hold it to just four (which I think is the lowest number ever). I also wanted to work exclusively with models who were knew to me and I met that goal as well: I had never shot any of these models underwater, and two I had not even met prior to our session. I'm calling 2012 a success.
Sep
18
Nina: Final Underwater of 2012
Well, as poetic as I may have made that sound, it turned out that our summer weather has stuck around for a few bonus weeks. But even though the warm and dry days have remained longer than anyone would have guessed, I resisted all urges to squeeze in any additional shooting, thereby ensuring that this was in fact the last session of the season. Let it be known: Summer 2012--as measured by my underwater shooting schedule--did in fact conclude at the end of August.
I first met Nina a couple years ago when she took part in my Common Thread project. A year later she was one of the first to volunteer to be in the Ant Farm, in which she donned a shocking red wig and stuck a very animalistic pose, one that most viewers tended to linger over when they were looking at the project. After the Ant Farm shoot, we started talking about doing some underwater work, and many months later it finally happened.
One thing that was very different about this shoot relative to others is that we did not run through very many different outfit/prop combinations. While this may have reduced the overall variety of the shots a bit, it gave me a lot more content to work with within each style. Even though I ended up taking fewer shots than I typically do, it ended up taking me longer to sort through them Funny how that works.
The final thing we did was play with the red rope from the Common Thread project, which turned out to present its own set of challenges. The rope was annoying buoyant and kept trying to do its own thing. Bad misbehaving prop! Still, Nina was able to wrangle it into submission; there was no way we were going to let the rope win that day.
And with that, I bid farewell to the 2012 underwater season. I set out with the goal of doing relatively few shoots, and I managed to hold it to just four (which I think is the lowest number ever). I also wanted to work exclusively with models who were knew to me and I met that goal as well: I had never shot any of these models underwater, and two I had not even met prior to our session. I'm calling 2012 a success.
Sep
03
Underwater Ballerina: Sara
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.
Sep
02
Second Underwater of 2012: Claudia Lorena
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.
Aug
14
First Underwater of 2012: Kim Jonet
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!