A moment of levity to leviate the stress of the season
From one perspective…
I don’t like shooting underwater. I tried it several years ago, before cameras were digital, and found that I was too focused on my own breathing, making sure that the camera casing wasn’t leaking, and watching out for jellyfish to focus on getting good pictures. I haven’t tried it again since. I make that caveat right here at the front so no one gets the idea that I actually asked this delightful couple to make repeated dives without as much as a snorkel in order to capture these photos.
The photos were shot back in mid-October (just a hint of how large my current backlog is), in a studio, at the end of a session where we had shot hundreds of other photos on a totally unrelated topic. It was raining out. and having long been a fan of the movie Dancing in the Rain, I thought it might be fun to play off that concept and I would add the rain in post.
Time does an interesting thing to one’s perspective, though, and by the time I got around to actually processing the photos, I was feeling a need to create something more fun, to the point of being ridiculous. After a bit of experimentation, layering multiple effects on top of each other, we came up with a look that seems quasi-believable if one would choose to dispense with the whole needing-to-breathe thing. Are there still issues? Sure. The light displacement wouldn’t be as consistent, among other things. But we’re not after that level of accuracy, are we? We’re having fun, not trying to create an alternative reality.
And fun is what I think we achieved, which is why I’ve saved them for this Sunday. We need something light, not heavily introspective, no social commentary hidden in the context, or any expectation that the photos might change one’s perspective of the world. There is enough seriousness wandering around at the moment. We need images to help us smile, to imagine what it would be like trying to open an umbrella underwater and take our minds off the stress for a moment. I hope this set of photos does that for you. Enjoy.
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