How to do an aquatic photoshoot without swimming pool
Today, I’m gonna talk about my first collaboration with Clara and Camille from Délicate Distorsion.
As I was saying in a previous article, we already worked together on a crazy project and we decided to try something crazy and experimental every year. This shooting session is from the summer 2014, so I think I made progress technically speaking since then, but I still love the pictures we created together on this day <3
Camille is the creator of Délicate Distorsion, she sells creations based on her graphic universe, and scarves more particularly. Clara is a beautiful professional dancer and she’s always ok (for now) to take part in my weird/experimental/crazy shootings.
For this shooting we canted to work with water (well basically to put her in a pool :p) and to include scarves from Camille so she could use the pictures to promote her creations.
For a shooting in the water, all you need is:
A swimming pool for kids : with the right size so it can contain Clara
A black sheet : to cover the ugly blue color!
A stepladder : to take pictures from above
A yard with water mains inlet or a watering can and a lot of patience (that’s what we did)
Pots with hot water if you don’t want your Clara to become a cold noodle
Milk, to color the water in white and create volutes (caution, you only have one shot at this!
After that your water will be completely white as in the picture above)
Scarves, flowers, a Clara, and nice stuff to put in the water to spice up your picture
Preparing the shooting with love
The only thing I had to buy for these pictures was the inflatable swimming pool, that I still have (I’m gonna use it really soon for another shooting session!). So one more time, with a bit of budget and ingenuity, we managed to create really cool pictures! I don’t have a yard anymore in my new place, but if I had to do this again I guess I would find a friend who has a yard (come on! In the name of art!)
At the time, I had bought a DICAPAC, it’s basically a plastic bag/container to put your camera in and it’s supposed to be waterproof. Honestly I never had any problem with that but I think I was very lucky and I won’t do it again. Moreover it was really not handy, really NOT.
I bought a small Lumix camera (for vacation) that is waterproof and if I had to do it again I would take this camera instead, the resolution is good, it’s really handy (and most importantly I’m not afraid to drown 2,000 euros worth of material for a mediocre result)
There you go! You can see all the picture from the making-of. We actually shoot during the entire afternoon for a few pictures (well yeah I still was a beginner!) and Clara was exhausted eventually (and freezing despite the pots of hot water). I have a really good memory about this shooting session and I think I’d like to do something similar but with more experience, and more perspective on technical difficulties (during spring!)
In the end, when looking back at the pictures two years later, I still find it crazy to a have a result like this just by tinkering with a few thing in the yard.
Check Camille’s work from Délicate Distorison and Clara’s Instagram account!
What do you think about this photoshoot? Could you imagine the behind the scenes looked like this when you looked at the pictures? Do you have great MacGyver’s ideas you would like to share with us?
LOTS OF LOVE & bisous!
Pauline
