My cousin, Kyle, just graduated from film school.  We were chattin’ it up at my grandma’s and he was telling me all about his underwater housing.  I’d heard of housing for cameras, but I thought it was just for surfers.  Then, I saw an amazing underwater maternity shot on pinterest and an idea was born.  Originally, Kyle and I wanted to have my friend Laura model for us.  She’s that perfectly tiny and stylish pregnant girl.  But, we missed the boat, because the baby came early.  Sooo, plan B was to use my kids as subjects.

Let me just tell you…this was the most fun I’ve had in AWHILE.  I swear we were in the pool at least 2 hours just having fun and trying ideas out.  I think this is the most I’ve been in our pool all year.  See family picture below and you’ll know why.  🙂  Kyle did all the technical-ish stuff and just let me try out some creative ideas.  It was  A LOT harder than I anticipated.  Maybe it’s because I had a hard time staying under the water for long, maybe it was because pushing the shutter was 50 times harder than normal.  I don’t know how surf photographers do it!?  Kyle’s a pro and taught me all the tricks of the trade.

I should also note that our pool is perfect for this.  The funny thing is that our house was bank owned and when we bought it the pool was a literal swamp.  We had no idea if it even worked or that the bottom would look like this.  After it was drained and cleaned, we were so excited to have such a unique pool.

I also really liked some of these images in black and white.  There’s just so much contrast!

Okay, so our family picture.  Kyle thought it would be fun to do this.  He forgot that I can’t submerge for longer than like 2 seconds.  Oh and I wear contacts, so I was squinty-squinterson.  I also learned through this experience that Brent is EXTREMELY photogenic underwater.  Like freakishly able to open his eyes and be all relaxed at the bottom of the pool.

And here’s Kyle.  He calls this one attack of the cousins.

We were thinking about offering underwater sessions as a special promo in August.  Of course this is for swimmers only.  Unless a parent wants to get the pool too!  If there’s enough interest, we’ll put something together…so give me a holler if you’re interested!

-Kristin