Montreal-based photographer Benjamin Von Wong traveled to Bali to capture this breathtaking photo shoot, 25 feet under water in the midst of a sunken ship.
Ever since my first shoot underwater, I’ve been dreaming of taking shoots out of a swimming pool into a shipwreck so when my parents told me to take some time off and go on a vacation in Bali I leaped at the opportunity to put together this shoot.
Photographing underwater is actually quite difficult. Here were a few of the greatest challenges for Von Wong.
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.