Benjamin Von Wong, a Montreal photographer – underwater fashion

From Bored Panada

Benjamin Von Wong, a Montreal-based photographer known for his complicated productions and fantastic images bristling with power, has completed an extraordinarily difficult underwater photoshoot with absolutely stunning results. He and a hand-picked crew of experienced divers, underwater photographers and freedivers set up an entire photoshoot 25m under the sea in a sunken shipwreck off the coast of Bali.

The images are enchanting in their own right, before you even get into the incredible technical details of the photoshoot. The models, who also had to be experienced freedivers (divers known for diving without oxygen tanks), posed on-site in and around the shipwreck with beautiful flowing dresses provided by international Bali-based designer Ali Charisma. Their flowing dresses transform them into the wonderfully beautifully mermaids or nymphs of mythology, who threatened to drag sailors bewitched by their beauty to the cold, dark depths.

To make the shoot possible, Von Wong had to find just the right people to support the photoshoot. Instead of photo assistants, he had experienced safety divers who provided the freediver models with breaths of air from their oxygen tanks. The underwater setting prohibited the use of studio luxuries like lighting – they had to rely on camera strobes and on natural lighting. For some of the shots, the models were actually tied down to the shipwreck – a miscommunication could have spelled disaster for their project.

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To see the full extent of Benjamin’s work go to his website here

6 photography quotes every photographer should live by

From Digital Camera World……Learn from the famous photographers and true legends of photography with our practical guide to the six best photography quotes ever uttered and how you can put them into practice.

In the 175 years that photography has been around, some very smart people have picked up cameras, and some of these very smart people have said some very smart things.

Indeed, some photographers, such as Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier Bresson, wrote extensively on the theory and practice of photography, and as we’ll see, were never short of an illuminating maxim or pithy aphorism.

Other photographers wanted their images to do the talking, and went in for more esoteric observations which we’re still puzzling over today.

Anyway, the best quotations about any subject are those which still help and inspire people today, so with this in mind, here are our six favourite photographic quotes – along with some ideas on how you can put these wise words into practice.

Photography Quote No. 1

Photographer:  Robert Capa

Quote: “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”

What it means
If you get closer to your subject you will often end up with sharper, better composed shots. By filling the frame, or even cropping in closer, you’ll also eliminate dead space, and get a more intimate, involving image.

Don’t get so close, though, that you put yourself in danger – war photographer Capa sadly got too close to a landmine while covering the Viet Minh uprising in Vietnam in 1954.

SEE MORE: The 55 best photographers of all time. In the history of the world. Ever.

How to do it yourself
Try using a standard prime lens with a fixed focal length, rather than a long telephoto zoom, as this forces you to get in close to your subject and engage.

Even better, 50mm and 85mm primes usually have wide maximum apertures, which are handy in low light and help to blur the background, while revealing less optical distortion than zooms. They’re often great value too.

 

Go and see the rest here