Diving way back into my archives to 2010 and Carlotta Champagne. I rarely go back and re-edit photos from the past as I see them as part of growing as an artist, however sometimes it's interesting to see how they might look different with what I know now. This was also one of my very early underwater photo shoots, so it was part of the steep section of the learning curve.

Given that we were at Mission Beach I had wanted to use some of the excellent locations around the area, however the weather was not co-operating on that trip, so instead I used the patio area as a studio, and had Carlotta pose on the table top as it had an interesting surface.

My earlier editing style used a lot more contrast and a tone that had quite a bit more red in it.

We then moved to the pool for some underwater photos.

At this stage I was still trying to work out my lighting style for underwater, I had a couple of lights set up on stands in the pool. You can see that the light is creating patterns on Carlotta's skin and it doesn't define her well in the water. That's because I didn't focus the lights close enough to create a large spotlight on her. There is a lack of contrast as I was using a lens that was too long, and I was positioned too far away from her.

Between the movement of the water surface and how far the lights were apart they created the diffraction like patterns of light.

This will happen at the edges with a single source of light as well, but it is more noticeable with two or more lights and covers a greater area.

I hope to one day have the opportunity to photograph Carlotta underwater again, using what I have learnt since.