Tag UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY

Three Generations

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Anouska decided to do an underwater photo shoot to use in a Christmas card to send to family and friends around the world. I think this is such a great idea, especially when you are living in tropical Singapore while your family is in cold, wet England : ) It is something unique and fun to capture your lifestyle in Singapore. They also live in a beautiful condo on Sentosa overlooking the sea so it was a great way to capture their surroundings as well.

It was going to be a fun, challenge to include three generations of their family which included Anouska and her husband, his brother, their two young children and his parents. Not everyone felt like getting wet which was fine and we did some over under shots to start. I like to do this anyway showing people’s legs underwater and the rest above.

Then the family of four jumped in for some fun underwater shots…

And some more over/unders for the two year old girl who couldn’t go under…

This was on Christmas Eve morning and I managed to edit a selection of the best shots to send to Anouska just in time to send to family for Christmas!

Ibiza Baby!

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Ibiza is one of my favourite places in the World and we have had some fabulous holidays here over the years. People are often surprise that we go for family holidays but it really is very family friendly and these days it’s more about the beaches, long lunches and boat trips than the super clubs.

There are about 50 beaches and coves around the island, all with different qualities and vibes. Some are hard to get to and quite deserted while others are jammed with restaurants and sunbed with a party vibe. Some are pebbly, some are sandy. We usually discover new ones each time but have some favourites too. It is some of the clearest water I have seen anywhere (Barrier Reef, Hawaii, Maldives, Indonesia, Fiji included but yet to go to the Bahamas!)

Last year in 2018 was one of our most epic trips yet as we spent 2 weeks there celebrating my husband, Christian’s 40th with about 40 family and friends over a few days. One of the highlights is always a boat trip out to Formenterra and lunch at the iconic Juan Y Andrea, where you eat barefoot in the sand some of the freshest, tastiest seafood, salads, salted fish, drink rosé all day and those Spanish olives… yum!

Above: not our boat / our boat : )

During the second week which was spent with a family in a different location, near Talamanca, we were able to explore some different places and also chill out in the villa pool with its incredible view over to the Old Town,

One of our favourite spots is the Cotton Club at Cala Tarida. When you walk down those steps towards the beach it is such a Wow! moment. It was a fabulous day of swimming, jetty jumping, rock jumping and lunching at the Cotton Club which has to be one of the best lunch spot views on the island if not the World. The pictures speak for themselves but don’t even do it justice!

We took another boat trip around the South-West part of the island and it was one of the best days ever! The water was just mind-blowingly beautiful and we just swam off the boat with the kids, stopped for lunch at a fabulous, rustic restaurant reached by boat, Ses Boques and cruised around different bays, beaches and the famous Es Vedra rock, which is thought to have mystical, magnetic healing powers.

A special thanks to Jonny Turnbull at Fancy Ibiza who helped organise this epic trip for us! If you are going to Ibiza,  I really recommend his concierge company who can help book anything from hotels, villas, restaurants, boats you name it! See you next time!

Swish Swimming Video (March 2018)

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How cute are these two? They are swim school besties and have been learning swimming together for almost 3 years. I was super excited for this project as I hadn’t had a chance to explore the video function much on my Canon 5D mark iii, but the quality is amazing!

I have worked for and at Swish Swimming school before, for one of my first underwater photo shoots, doing some of their earlier marketing shots, shooting at a pool party event and using their fab pool for some of my personal work. They have now expanded and have a fabulous new pool venue nearby called Laguna so this became our theme. I also adopted their colour scheme of yellow and turquoise and sourced some props and costumes, including pineapple swim shorts, straw skirt, sunglasses and flowers.

I put together a storyboard which included the kids demonstrating different skills in a fun way, such as diving in, picking up an object from the bottom, blowing bubbles, floating and climbing out of the pool. These two were such superstars and seemed to really enjoy the experience, which makes my job much easier! The main challenge was the clarity of the water which was very cloudy because they had lessons all morning. It is normally very clear so this was a shame and detracted a bit from the final product.

I did my best using the Wondershare Filmora video editing software, which I loved and it was so easy to trim the clips, add transitions, text, special effects and audio. The final Swish Video is a 30 second clip.

 

Komodo (March 2018)

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We had some previously unused flights to use up so decided to take a weekend (kid free!) to Komodo in Indonesia. I was so excited to do some diving and ocean photography! A friend had stayed at the Seraya Resort and recommended it so this is where we went. The beach bungalows were simple, lovely and right on a stunning stretch of sand leading onto the house reef. It’s a bit of a mission to get there from Singapore… flying to Jarkarta, then to Labuan Bajo and a speedboat to the island, but it was worth it!

Waking up to a stunning sunrise which called me to take a walk along the jetty, I new it was going to be a magical day. The water was crystal clear and glassy and I saw some baby black tips as well as a few lion fish (noted to look out for these as you do not want to get stung!). We booked a day trip with Aqura Dive, the onsite dive shop and I couldn’t wait as it had been over a year since my last dive.

Of course we had to go to Komodo Island which is one of only a few islands that inhabit the Komodo dragon. I’ve seen Goanna’s and Monitor Lizards but these things are beasts!

Next stop was turtle city. As soon as we anchored, we were greeted by a large loggerhead popping up to check us out. During the dive we lost count after about 20 turtles. I love observing their different characters… some appear friendly and relaxed around the divers and others seem to say, leave me alone and get that camera out of my face (so I did!) Much like humans I guess : )

Now off to the Manta feeding station. I was super excited for this as although i’ve seen a couple of mantas in the distance in the Maldives, I had not been up close with the Oceanic Manats. It’s hard to get an idea of the scale of these majestic creatures but the wing span was over 4 metres. They would swim right over us as and come back around again for their cleaning so it was incredible to sit and watch (and take photos!) Unfortunately the water visibility wasn’t the best so the photos are a bit gritty.

Fortunately my husband enjoys scuba diving too, since I bought him a PADI course for Christmas about 12 years ago! So it’s great having him along as my buddy. However, he also likes to chill out and read a book on holidays (fair enough!) so it’s about finding balance between a bit of adventure and culture and just relaxing. We did a bit of that but I spent most of my time snorkelling on the house reef which was pretty impressive. I also had to drag him away from his book to do some creative shots that I had in mind…

I read my book too! hehe