An Under Water Pre Wedding Session - Joey & Amily

Hi Everyone, Joey and Amily will be getting married in just over a week and thought I'd share with you a Pre wedding session I did for them. Being the fun loving and adventurous couple that they are, they opted to have one of their pre wedding shoot locations to be in a swimming pool. Though it was the first time, doing an underwater shoot for me I decided to take up the challenge as it sounded like great fun. This blog post will be my thoughts and sharing on the experience of having an underwater shoot. It would contain useful tips and information if you are considering to have an underwater pre wedding shoot as well. 

First of all was to get the required underwater gear, which included an underwater casing for my camera which cost about $118 to rent.  As you can see from the image below, it resembles the likes of a satellite dish and weight about a wrist snapping 7-10kgs with the camera inside. The amazing thing is that once it is in the water it weights close to nothing due to the buoyancy of the water.  

Another cool thing cool thing that I learnt is that, you would not need to risk your actual wedding dress being ruined by the nasty chlorene in the pool. You can actually buy an "underwater" bridal gown which is specially made for underwater shoots. It actually safer to shoot in these gowns as they are made to be very light and would not weigh you down when swimming it in. I have seen many of these available on Tao Bao for under S$100. They are pretty long and would make for beautiful movement underwater. 

For this shoot, other than the gear, safety was paramount as I wanted both Joey and Amily to be safe at all times during the shoot. Thankfully my assistant for the day was lifeguard trained and could watch over the couple as I was taking photos. It would also be good if the bride can be somewhat of a stronger swimmer as she would be required to swim in a rather long and bulky dress. 

Lastly, if you are doing it at a condo swimming pool, you will need approvals for the shoot. For us when the management realised that we were going to shoot in the pool itself, they sent the security guards to tell us to stop (We had approval from the owner and not from the management). It was only after much persuasion and convincing that we had a life guard trained person on hand that we were allowed to continue with out shoot, albeit for about 30mins longer before the management office gave firm instructions that we were to end out shoot. Thank God we had all the images we needed and were already very tired anyway. 

These are just some of the thoughts I'd like to share so here are some of the images we managed to capture during this session.  And yes, the photographer needs to be in good shape too. I am not so it was pretty much a workout for me and I was completely hammered after the session.