You probably recognize my friend BriAnn. She’s always up for making some photos and is ridiculously easy to work with, whether she’s standing in a muddy, stinking marsh or posing in a dilapidated log cabin with a pissed-off possum. So when I told her that I wanted to photograph her swimming in a ball gown I wasn’t very surprised when she simply replied, “sure, whatever”. Little did she know that the dress would try to drown her several times and that she’d be blind for about twelve hours.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

You’re The Inspiration

Flipping through a recent edition of PDN magazine, I spied an underwater image shot by Tamar Levine.  The image stuck with me, primarily because it was shot underwater.  I’ve always been intrigued by underwater images, from the famous cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album to The Abyss–the James Cameron film shot almost entirely underwater.  But seeing as I’m an “emerging photographer” I have zero budget for an underwater rig that will allow me to use my digital cameras.  So instead of shelling out $3k for a giant plastic camera case, I spent $12.50 on a reusable underwater 35mm film camera.  Then I spent almost twice that on a couple rolls of film.

The viewfinder on the camera is tricky to sight underwater, and since it’s a focus-free camera you have to relinquish any notions of control and just go with it.  The results are unpredictable, but interesting nonetheless.  A few of the more successful shots are
below.

Back To 1′s And 0′s

Even though I was excited about the underwater stuff, I knew better than to waste an opportunity to shoot some other stuff around the pool.  After all, I had the pool, a bunch of lights, and a pretty girl willing to swim around in a full-length dress!

We started with a couple splash shots, just to see what they would look like.  Poor BriAnn whacked her head on the water pretty good but still did a couple more takes.  Don’t tell her, but the first one was perfect.  After she regained consciousness (kidding) we did some floaty-hair portrait stuff, some half-submerged shots and whatever else we could think of.  It was a lot of fun just playing with the light and riffing on ideas.

Eventually we took a break and when she dried off I caught her making a movement on the edge of the pool.  It looked promising so I set up a softbox and had her make several more of the twirling movements so I could snap some frames.  When she finally got dizzy, we sat down for some pool-side portraits before she dove back in and we did some abstract slow-shutter shots.  That, and the rear curtain flash accounts for the weird melty-face photos.

I can’t thank BriAnn enough for being such a trooper, as always.  Even though the chlorine rendered her nearly blind for half a day (try opening your eyes underwater continuously for 3 hours) and the wet dresses weighed a ton even in the water, she never complained.  I can’t wait to see what half-baked photo ideas we cook up next.

She did mention skydiving…

Briann At The Pool – Images by Corey Woodruff