There’s an amazing workshop that will be no more, called After Dark Education. It’s really an amazing experience that has impacted likely thousands of photographers, both novice and pros.
Brooke Shaden has been a coveted speaker at AD, as it’s called, and I have had the pleasure of assisting her in her workshops as well as attend others. This week in St. Louis, I assisted her with an underwater photography class. Shooting with natural light, Brooke creates astonishing other-worldly images. Never stingy with her information, she always answers all questions anyone may have and truly believes in promoting passion in other photographers. Visit her website and blog at www.promotingpassion.com.
We did this shoot at a Hilton hotel, which had lovely skylights and big windows along one wall of the pool. Unfortunately, the pool was quite dirty and had many particles floating about, which made for an interesting time focusing!
My job in assisting (Brooke is so easy to work with, by the way) was basically just to hop into the refreshingly cool water and plunging a black backdrop into the corner of the pool to create a black wall. The purpose of using the black backdrop was so that the photographer can create her or his own world and not look like it was shot into a pool.
Although Brooke in the past has shot using a box for her camera, then an Ikelight housing, she now uses a highly rated simple point and shoot camera, the Pansonic Lumix. She graciously offered the use of the camera to anyone who was brave enough to jump in the pool and try it.
I have a series of images that I have hopes of putting together to create a composite, but I’ll save that for later. The image I’m posting today actually was taken as I was above Marsha (the lovely model) as I submersed the camera into the water.
If you have a chance to ever see Brooke in person, bring her some vegan chocolate or some home made juice. She’s an amazing instructor, but even better, has a beautiful soul.