Trade Secrets: Underwater portraits

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|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2005-08-09

Trade Secrets: Underwater portraits
Al Diaz's portrait of a water polo team is the third in a series of SportsShooter.com features called "Trade Secrets."

By Al Diaz, Miami Herald

Photo by Al Diaz / Miami Herald

The Gulliver Prep girls water polo team finished their fourth undefeated season with five state titles and 137 straight wins.

It's splashing sun and fun in Miami and I'm thinking I should really take advantage of that with my next portrait assignment for the Miami Herald.

Inspired by my friend Rick McCawley and his recent underwater photography, I approached Herald sports writer Andre Fernandez with the idea of shooting underwater portraits. He mentioned that the Gulliver Prep girls were undefeated with 135 consecutive wins and seeking their fifth consecutive state title.

Perfect - except I had less than a week to prepare and I have never done this before.

McCawley suggested I buy a Ewa-Marine underwater housing, so I had one FedExed to my house.

We set up the shoot at the Miami-Dade Community College-Kendall Campus swimming pool. I arrived three hours early to test the housing and set up the lights.

I wondered how I would avoid the black lanes painted in the competition pool. Then I realized - I could use the dive pool. It has two observation wells with a window below water level at each corner and no black stripes.

I placed a Dynalite head in each observation well and used a set of PocketWizard MultiMax Transceivers to trigger the strobes.

The Ewa-Marine U-AXP100 housing I selected has room to mount a flash on the camera's hotshoe.

For this application, the PocketWizard was mounted onto the hotshoe of a Canon 10-D with a 16-35 f2.8. Photographer Alex Kolyer pointed out that radio frequencies don't do well under water, which meant that I could only dive a foot or two while using snorkel gear.

After several attempts, I would show the coach and the girls the image on the digital back and adjust their positions accordingly. Getting the girls involved made all the difference in their enthusiasm while applying a coordinated effort to dive in sequence and get those balls to stay under water.

The final frame, number 34, made for the perfect shot.

The photograph was a hit in the newsroom and was liked enough to push the whole piece to be used on 1A instead of sports.

Now, I'm getting calls from my assignment editor asking if I would mind using my new underwater housing to shoot a boating assignment and to photograph an underwater park on Biscayne Bay. Life is good down under!

Al Diaz is a staff photographer for the Miami Herald.

"Trade Secrets" is a series of educational features where SportsShooter.com members reveal the inside-information about how they were able to create a specific image (or two.) To nominate an image for this feature, please send a message to the SportsShooter.com admin staff here: http://www.sportsshooter.com/contactus.html The SportsShooter.com admin staff reserves the right to accept, or not accept, any nomination.

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Diaz's member page