freediving / freerunning chepstow

AIDA pool world championships, Belgrade

Here's a compilation i did of the 10 days of work at the AIDA pool world championship in Belgrade. 4 world records were set there, and i had the privilege and pleasure of recording them all.



Here are some of the record dives:

freerunning meets freediving, part I

Georgina Miller 104 meters dynamic no fins

After a tough working week George did 6:15 static and managed to do this long swim in the span of 2 hours at a little competition in Manchester organized by Steve Millard



And do some posing for me



Strong kitten, that one.

back in 60 seconds version 2

Here's a different edit of a video i posted earlier . This was my initial edit, and i quite liked it, but we were never sure about which music should go with the video. Then William thought of 'Flight of the Bumblebee' and that was so refreshing and non-traditional, that we went with that song. But last week i was going over some old stuff and came across this version, and figured it was fun enough to publish.

standing in mid air

It's a bit of a theme this week how some work seems to wait for context before it can be published. In this case, i have a collection of portraits of women underwater, and because i love the contrast of normal clothes out of the ordinary environment, i always like to photograph people with their regular clothes on, instead of wetsuits. Wetsuits do look good underwater, but they also make everyone look the same. Plus it is a challenge for me as an underwater photographer to get the skin tone right; when you get it right, nothing looks better than that refracted light on skin. So now i'm building up this collection but other than the theme of women in regular clothing underwater, i haven't got the final element yet.

That is, until i hear the song 'Mid air' by Paul Buchanan. He used to be the lead singer of a band called the Blue Nile and they had a song 'Let's go out tonight' which was remixed by Craig Armstrong and then used in the series 'Six feet under' etc etc, in any case, when a new album by him is coming i check it out immediately -he's got a great voice. And this song instantly invites me to see women, underwater.

I love editing to music, it gives such rich context and almost obvious structure, and i get slightly obsessive with songs anyway, so i listen to them incessantly, which is what you need to do when editing. The song fit the images, or the other way around, in any case, after a lot of clicking it clicked. Hope you enjoy as much as i did the process of making it with all these fantastic women. For best effect, please watch in HD.

two videos from the Great Northern

Last month i was at the Great Northern comp in Liverpool, as the UW photographer. I also shot two videos there, of my friends Eric van Riet Paap (Mr Van) and Mateusz Malina (Mr Mat Malina Mr Mad Mat Malina). Both videos ended up being edited by someone else, in Mr Van's case by Mr Van, and in Mat's case by the organizer of the event, and i like both videos a lot. What i like most about these collaborations is that they end up in a completely different way than what i would have done, and i like this difference.

Here is Mr Van's dynamic -i was very happy to see him turn at 150 and keep going:



And here's Mat's effort -he has the record for longest dive recorded, i think it was a 4:45 to 100 something in Free Immersion, so i knew he was going to take his time, and lord in speedo's did he ever:



And here are my photo's:

back in 60 seconds

William Trubridge diving to 60 meters and back in 60 seconds



and the interview

freediving condition

jumping through bubble rings

As Patron Saint of Bubble Rings® i have to jump through many hoops -which i do with pleasure

St Daan of the Bubble Rings

I might be slightly obsessed with bubble rings



-but can you blame me? They're awesome; they make grey days bright



they're very comfortable to sit on



they help you with framing



they give you something to aim for



and they're excellent hula hoops



so since there's a vacancy -i checked- i'm declaring myself patron saint of bubble rings



blessed be those who blow rings:



see also

the deep line

Estrella Navarro Holm sets Mexican freediving record

During the AIDA team world champioships in Villefranche-sur-Mer, freediver and model Estrella Navarro Holm set a new Mexican record Constant Weight with a dive to 58 meters.

I was there to shoot footage for a documentary about extreme sports -Attention, a life in extremes- that'll come out next year, but they were not going to use this shot, so i figured i'd put it on youtube; it's a beautiful dive.



if youtube is being a bit of an asshole, here's the vimeo version:

Estrella Navarro Holm sets Mexican freediving record from Daan Verhoeven on Vimeo.

underwater dance off

In between takes on the underwater realm we messed about a bit, as you might have noticed from a previous post. One of the cast, the ridiculously fit Patrick Bauristhene, is a professional dancer, so we did a bit of monkeying in front of our underwater cameramen. Turns out that the crew had done the same damn thing, so now we have a bit of a dance-off, a battle of sorts, on our hands.

THE GREAT UNDERWATER DANCE OFF. from Realm Pictures on Vimeo.

Good thing Pat was there, i look more like boiling spaghetti than like a dancer. Sam does a mean body pump, too

Cornelis Verhoeven and Ischa Meijer

11 years ago today my father died. To commemorate him, i've translated an interview from 1991, when he and violinist Vera Beths were guests at Ischa Meijer's talkshow. I remember going there quite well, sitting in that audience and meeting Ischa -who was tiny but much kinder that you'd expect from his interviews. But i didn't remember anything that was said, so when i saw the interview again a couple of years ago, i was mostly struck by a moment 4 minutes and 40 seconds into the video -there's a moment when he's so totally unguarded himself, that i found myself watching those 2 seconds over and over again. On later viewings i was also struck by what he said about being edified (22:08). And i still giggle when he pokes Ischa -a notoriously teasing interviewer- back by saying "Next time you read Plato" (6:50) like it's something you do daily.

It's strange how it's already 11 years -feels much shorter, and at the same time, like a lifetime ago.

new world record: the Hecto-Feet-First

It has been a while since i did my last world record, mostly due to the extensive press tour afterwards, but also because of a lack of challenges: it appeared no one was able to eat an apple or take superman pants deeper. In these demanding categories, human kind had reached the edge of what was possible at this time.

So it was once again up to me to set myself a new challenge. My friend William Trubridge had done a fun little dip with a project he called 'the hectometer'



but i figured: "Why stop at meters? Why not feet? And then, to make things really interesting, why not flip the whole script and go feet first?"

As usual, they said it could not be done. But i say it can be Daan! (though my publicist insists i really shouldn't say that) So i went for it: the Hecto-Feet-First. I trained and trained until i had athlete's feet (once again, for some reason, my publicist objects to this term) and felt as ready as could be for this monumental task -never before had man been in this position, so you're never sure if you're actually ready. But late february 2012, on a little island in the Bahamas, new territory of human potential was about to be uncovered:



It was a resounding success, not only of athleticism, but of grace and camera-angles.

As always with these awe-inspiring feats of feet, i hope to entice the world to rethink boundaries, to push limits, to go beyond the comfort of the usual. What else can we do feet first? What else can we do in reverse?

Flip the script, my friends, and you'll get, ehm, tpircs, written upside down.

Georgina Miller, UK pool champ

This weekend Georgina Miller came first at the UK pool freediving championships in Liverpool, with a PB in dynamic of 131 meters and a fat new UK record static of 6:20



here's a video by Sean Peters of her entire static



and she did all this while having to pee and with the entrance boarded up



but more factually, and impressively, she did it while running a physically and mentally very demanding business as a landscape gardener: http://www.georginamillergardens.co.uk/ 



Well impressive lady, that one. And blissfully odd taste in men.

swimming through bubble rings

messing about in Dean's Blue Hole

new entry in the series 'very serious freediving vids'

hauling the whole hole