Last week I received a message from my buddy and talented photographer Ben Von Wong. We all know him for his incredible photos that mix practical effects as well as precisely-applied post production visuals. His recent photoshoot entitled "MAKING OF: BALLANTINE’S PRESENTS VON WONG’S UNDERWATER RIVER" is no exception. To make this all happen, Benjamin created a portrait shoot with a set his crew built aboveground and installed 30 meters underwater just feet above toxic hydrogen sulfide. Learn more about his shoot below.
According to Benjamin Von Wong:
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.
Traditional culture as a whole, is something that is inexorably fading with time. I wanted to create a piece that would immortalize a piece of my own culture – the iconic cormorant fisherman. By placing him directly above an underwater river, within this portal that was believed to lead to the Mayan underworld, seemed like the perfect way to bid farewell to a proud tradition.
As a general rule, taking underwater portraits is extremely complicated. Simple tasks like breathing, communicating. posing and moving become a lot more complex whilst standard lighting rules and equipment requirements change completely.
Transport that shoot 30m underwater and suddenly things become exponentially more complex. Ambient light levels and visibility plummet, dive time is reduced significantly while the safety risks from potential malfunction increase.
Add onto that a toxic layer of opaque hydrogen sulfide and only five days in Mexico meant we were really setting ourselves up for a challenge.
If you want to learn more details about how this shoot was accomplished head on over to Von Wong's blog: http://www.vonwong.com/blog/underwaterfisherman/
Images were captured with the Nikon D800 and Nauticam underwater housing.
I appreciate Von Wong because he is always trying to push his boundaries to the next level creatively and production-wise. I think this shoot came out great and like it even more now that I know how much setup went in to making it happen.
this is amazing.. well done!
Incredible art direction and execution.
Von Wong never fails to stun and amaze! The image is made even more inspiring by the knowledge that the effect was achieved in camera... Love it.
that is super cool.
"In a hole in the ground, there lived a photographer. Not a nice one with all that means comfort, but a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell."
Great job as always Wong =)