Chris David's "Underwater Portraits: Natasha" is a part of season 3 continual series of underwater portrait works he have been working on as a personal project. He first started scuba diving in 1998 and studying photography in 2000 with a strong focus in events, portraiture and fashion. In 2010 he purchased his first underwater housing and started to experiment little by little in underwater photography mostly photographing marine life. It’s only in 2013 he married up those skills and started his underwater portraits project.

The original underwater theme/styling revolves around ethereal, mystical and mythical creatures with some of the shoots complexity increasing as we get around some of the technical issues surrounding underwater photography. This project with Natasha we used some of her existing wardrobe she brought into the shoot a long with the long fabrics I have on hand. My colour palette is more on the neutral side and we work more on how things flow, expressions/posture and reflections.

- Chris David

Important tools would be imagination and creativity above most but hardware I’m currently shooting on a Canon 5D Mark III, 16-35mm f4 IS lens in an Ikelite housing. I do mix my lighting methods from shoot to shoot using anything from natural light, strobes (underwater and above ground) and custom-made UV lighting gear. In terms of software Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are the usual tools of the trade. The nature of water and its clarity has been unpredictable and full of variables to deal with. Every shoot is different and so I use LR and PS to work on levels and bring clarity to the subject followed by cleaning the foreground and background of elements that cause distractions. The final part usually ends up with some cropping.

- Chris David

My underwater projects have seem to have gained the most attention and response in all the years I’ve been photographing. It’s shooting something different, difficult and not as easily accessible to the majority of photographers out there that probably helped the most as well as doing it well. Can check out many more of the photos from the underwater project via Instagram. There are a number of crazy concepts I have on my “to photograph” list but now with Winter starting most of the shoots in Sydney would be under dryer conditions with hope that some of the attention would bring the shoots to other locations and warmer waters abroad.

- Chris David

About Chris David

Chris David is a Sydney based professional and fine art photographer. He studied photography and graphic designer (print/web) at technical colleges from 2000 a long with a number of other photography and painting classes at various local community colleges. It has been far from an easy journey and experience working in the creative industries but its the cost of doing something they love.

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