Underwater yoga with Brittany Trubridge

It's fascinating, all the facets that make for a good photo; sometimes all you need is good light, or a good location, or someone doing something interesting, or someone visually striking. And then there's the equipment, and the framing, and countless other things, which makes me think luck also has something to do with it.



Now i was lucky enough a couple of days ago to do some shooting with Brittany Trubridge, an extraordinary yoga teacher here on Long Island, Bahamas. Not only is she freaky bendy in that way yoga teachers are, but she's also a very fun presence to be around, lots of positive energy, and she's the kind of pretty that can only come from inside out. And she's married to William Trubridge, world champion freediving, and you cannot be married to him without picking up a thing or two about breath hold. So we did an underwater shoot.



Since i have no clue about yoga and am new to underwater photography, so i'm largely depending on Britta to make it work. And man, does she ever. Even though she's never done this underwater before, she does one fantastic pose after another, looking quite serene while her sinuses are getting flooded -unbelievable.



And the Blue Hole cooperated as well: the visibility was turned to 'endless' and the light was out to play



there were so many shots that just worked and Britta and Georgina had so many good ideas that we left with an amazing bunch of pictures. Hope you enjoy them:

freediving with reefsharks

paradise and sharks

Paradise is hardly an absolute term, isn't it? For me it constitutes this:



but for my sister, with who i share essentials like eyebrows and sense of humor, that dark hole would represent hell -especially if she knew that a barracuda lives there. That same mean looking bugger only enlarges my joy of the place.

She would very much enjoy the other side of the Blue Hole -most would, i'd imagine



but then there are people who love the snow and ice covering most of Europe right now, and would be bored beyond tears here.

And then there's sharks. Some of my best friends refuse to go swimming in any open water type environment because they have nightmares about sharks. First time i ever saw a shark in the water, i swam straight at it to investigate. It's not that i'm brave or stupid (well, that's up for debate, actually), they just don't strike me as dangerous. You pick up on vibes from animals, they're honest in their postures, and sharks are really good at telling you what's up. So when i saw these guys in the water a couple of days back, all i felt was thrilled and honored. Check out how fluidly they glide and how delicately the light plays with their skin



So for me, sharks belong in paradise. But more importantly, they belong outside paradise as well, and there they are being hunted. They have a vital function in the sea, besides being beautiful and majestic, and need all the protection they can get. If you have a moment, please help protect sharks:

http://www.sharkangels.org/
http://www.bite-back.com/
http://www.sharktrust.org/
http://www.sharkalliance.org/

Cornelis Verhoeven - the detour of words

Today would have been my father's 84th birthday. I miss him a lot, and often, but i never quite know how to express that. The essay i've put on his blog today explained a little to me why that is the  case. Part of it is this:

"We continuously need new words to express old experiences. And especially within the expression of those elemental experiences lurks the kitsch. This is what makes them inexpressible."

The rest of the essay, 'The detour of words', can be found here:

http://cornelisverhoeven.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/the-detour-of-words/

Blue Hole portraits

Here are some of the lovely people i get to play with in Dean's Blue hole:

This is Liv at the bottom plate

and Livvy upside down

and this is Georgina



and Georgina being lovely on the platform



There is the ridiculously good-looking couple of Tomoka and Igor



and me on one of those rare occasions where i get to see a bottom plate at depth


(picture by Liv Philip)

and more commonly, me and my ass


(Picture by Liv Philip -to who i apologize)

the Spirit of the Blue Hole

There are those who don't believe in magic. They reckon it's not logical, not rational. A few years back i was walking down an old street when a beautiful loud noise made me turn my head, and towards me came bobbing over the cobblestones an Aston Martin DB5 -you know, the car James Bond drives in Goldfinger. My jaw dropped, i might have drooled. A traffic cop saw my expression and said: "It's just a car, you know.""No it isn't," i replied, "if that's just a car then Rembrandt is just paint, Handel just sound, life a variation of carbon, love a mere bunch of hormones." Well, that's what i wished i said, anyway -it took me a couple of hours to figure out why that 'just a car' attitude made me so mad. That kind of reductionism sucks all the joy and magic out of life, like expressing a good meal in terms of carbs and proteins.

Now i have the bizarre good fortune to be in a place that is magic, actual, factual magic. Dean's Blue Hole, Long Island. It is unfathomably beautiful



and magic happens there: every day people venture into that darkness on a single breath of air and reach depths no man thought possible until recently; scientist still can't really explain how they do it



it's enough to turn your world upside down



As usual, my dad said it better: "A is not A; if A = A, life shrivels to an erotic-less, urge-less, amorphous mass of banalities. Only through negation can we become speechless spectators of the great Presence, for which we live."

Magic works in mysterious ways: i have no underwater camera capable of capturing it, but a friend does, and on this magic day, he graciously lent it to me, allowing me to not only become a speechless spectator of the magical Spirit of the Blue Hole, but photograph it. To all those dull deconstructing rationalists, she says hi

crazy creatures

Turns out that paradise makes its creatures quite bonkers. The wasps are twice as long



because of a champagne bottle in the middle



there are bugs with sticks as eyebrows



and some with carrots on their heads



the dragon flies wanna hump pegs



and the spiders have green asses with dots, white skull heads, and yellow legs with black furry pompoms



plus they're huge



and of course i'm gonna like orange butterflies, but this one took it to the next level: orange fur and even his eyes were orange



what's really crazy cute though, is the lizards. Not only do they hang at strange angles



they play peek-a-boo

playing in Dean's Blue Hole

Here's the first of i hope many Bahamas videos

putting the art in earth

I often wonder who painted the sky, but when you're in the sky, you can wonder who drew the earth, for it can be quite mad. All this blue and green can be Rothko on a not-so-linear day



and these spots can be Pollock using a fatter brush



but this looks like Japanese script



betcha it says "hurricanes fuck off"

Wordsworth probably had something to do with this



and maybe Miro had his hand in this



but who made these alien eyes?




though i suspect O'Keefe designed its tear ducts

the angles of january

little nibbler

Squirrel outside the house today