http://www.vonwong...og/baliunderwater/

"

• Normal models wouldn’t work unless they had extensive dive training and even then, they wouldn’t have the ability to hold their breaths for very long, especially at depth so Free Divers were going to be required.
  
  
  
  
  • Normal clothes couldn’t be rented since the sea water would wreck them, so we had to find a designer willing to part with the clothing they’d lend us.
    Normal assistants wouldn’t work, specially trained safety divers were going to be necessary to ensure a smooth photoshoot.
  
  
  
  
  
  • Scouting would be complicated – local divers would be necessary for us to navigate around the wreck and deal with unpredictable changes in the weather and tide.
  
  
  
  
  
  • Lighting and gear would be limited – shooting underwater meant that we had to work with what we had available: on camera strobes or natural light.

"

Despite the difficulties of getting this together...it came out absolutely gorgeous. I love underwater shoots. Something about an underwater wreck is just breathtaking. Literally!

Wow. Just......wow. I'd love to be a part of something like that. Man, that'd be amazing.

As a master diver, these sorts of things concern me greatly. Normally, as they're free divers, decompression wouldn't be an issue. However, the last photos show them being fed pressurized air when needed, which makes them subject to Dalton's and Boyle's Laws, and in turn, Barotraumas and Decompression Sickness. Their lack of buoyancy control also makes me uneasy. Especially so as they're doing wreck penetration without lines or proper equipment. It's a neat concept, no doubt, with an excellent finished product, but I can only hope that they know what huge risks they're taking here.

This is friggen awesome

imagine if a shark swam by


edit: and I totally jacked up the list mode and quotes on the original post. i tried to fix but i don't have the patience for the coding

Wow, pretty incredible, but super risky as others have said.

MOAR!

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This guy contacted me via a mutual friend awhile ago. He's really enthusiastic, but I kind of advised him against having model shoot in a sewer. Yes he really wanted to go down to a specific one...and didn't seem interested in storm drains which are doable in the middle of the day with a group of people. He seems to have a limitless budget for travel and tech.

Thank you for doing something totally cool and different!

and shipwrecks are creepy as all hell!

I have no idea why but this sort of thing makes me really uncomfortable. The photos are absolutely beautiful but the risk doesnt seem worth the outcome to me.

Posted by johnnycanuck It's a neat concept, no doubt, with an excellent finished product, but I can only hope that they know what huge risks they're taking here.

Posted by Skye_Ann The photos are absolutely beautiful [sic] but the risk doesnt [sic] seem worth the outcome to me.

My fellow UER members, your concern for their safety and well being is touching and appreciated by the photographer, I'm sure. However, your feedback is the equivalence of our mothers and fathers, spouses and friends telling us "I don't like the idea of you breaking and entering into an asbestos filled building and snorting that stuff just to show it off to your little forum friends.", or "You shouldn't be climbing things like that. You could fall off and die.", etc. This weird hobby of ours may have many risks and dangers involved (just like underwater diving), yet, we DON'T LISTEN and instead choose to go about it with a smile on our faces thinking "Urban explorations, ALRIGHT!"

We should all be giving this underwater artist and his team our praise on a job well done without sounding concerned for their for safety (as unintentionally rude as that may sound).



TL;DR?

Urbex has its own risks too, yet, we carefully look the other way and enter the darkness. At the end of the day, we make it out alright (if we were cautious), and we always live to explore another day.

I love that stuff, I want to get an underwater bag for my camera but I'm afraid of leaks

Sublime.
Best and most different model shoot I've seen in a long time
That's posing for effect

Posted by johnnycanuck As a master diver, these sorts of things concern me greatly. Normally, as they're free divers, decompression wouldn't be an issue. However, the last photos show them being fed pressurized air when needed, which makes them subject to Dalton's and Boyle's Laws, and in turn, Barotraumas and Decompression Sickness. Their lack of buoyancy control also makes me uneasy. Especially so as they're doing wreck penetration without lines or proper equipment. It's a neat concept, no doubt, with an excellent finished product, but I can only hope that they know what huge risks they're taking here.

Benjamin takes some extreme risks with stuff, but does end up with some fantastic shots. I don't care for all of his work, as he's been very political lately, but he has done some amazing work.

How he got started, I have no idea, but he's usually given an unlimited budget for his ideas. Basically a photographer's dream. Bold is my comments and italics are Benjamin's post.

http://blog.vonwon...derwaterfisherman/

I had this grand idea: To recreate the iconic scene of a young Chinese cormorant fisherman hard at work on a bamboo raft – shot 30 meters underwater in a cenote just above a toxic layer of hydrogen sulfide.

Which I might have to remind you that liquid hydrogen sulfide does absorb through the skin on contact. It was literally a paper thin density/temp gradient keeping the model from contact It was also 30m down for the free diver.

Lance would dive down, escorted by two safety divers ensuring that oxygen was only a couple seconds away when he would need it.

Simple hand gestures and an underwater dive slate were used to communicate with lighting and crew whilst Rich, my safety diver hovered an arms reach away, keeping a close eye on me and helping me manage my buoyancy so that I could focus on directing and shooting.

With only 20 minutes of shooting time underwater and 2 minute breathing-cycles for Lance, the shoot was frenetic and fast paced with little room for waiting around.

As I frantically clicked the shutter on my Nauticam housing, Lance went through a sequence of pre-practiced poses.

I had a Viking drysuit for years... never used it, just bought it and the helmet at an estate auction... sat in storage for years. Just sold it maybe two years ago? Maybe I should've kept it.

Superb. Hell yeah.
DA, this is dreamtime badass stuff.
Really like the results.

So many parameters to work with; just the currents and going/staying
were you want to be in a very limited time frame is daunting task in its self.

Posted by A Through Z Explorations My fellow UER members, your concern for their safety and well being is touching and appreciated by the photographer, I'm sure. However, your feedback is the equivalence of our mothers and fathers, spouses and friends telling us "I don't like the idea of you breaking and entering into an asbestos filled building and snorting that stuff just to show it off to your little forum friends.", or "You shouldn't be climbing things like that. You could fall off and die.", etc. This weird hobby of ours may have many risks and dangers involved (just like underwater diving), yet, we DON'T LISTEN and instead choose to go about it with a smile on our faces thinking "Urban explorations, ALRIGHT!" We should all be giving this underwater artist and his team our praise on a job well done without sounding concerned for their for safety (as unintentionally rude as that may sound). TL;DR? Urbex has its own risks too, yet, we carefully look the other way and enter the darkness. At the end of the day, we make it out alright (if we were cautious), and we always live to explore another day.

Couldn't have said it better myself man

Wow, those shots are absolutely ethereal, I've always loved the look of underwater photography