A wonderful mixture of alien and primally-familiar, the underwater environment offers tremendous potential for creative photography. It has the benefits of being generally available in most areas and also flatters the figure; reduced-gravity and a 'plumping effect' result in very smooth skin and contours.

In addition to the normal caution around water, extra care must be taken if artificial lighting is to be used, as the danger of electrocution is very real, and it's generally not possible to slave studio strobes off of a built-in flash (do to water's absorption of infrared light). The best options are available light, or bounce-flash (if the submersible flash is able to swivel). Breath-control is also an important issue, and if both model and photographer spend a few seconds breathing deeply, just before each set, the time spent shooting can be increased greatly and result in a more tranquil and comfortable experience. The largest practical concern is selecting a location where the water is clear. For this reason, lakes and beaches are generally not advisable.

Equipment for underwater work has become much more affordable over the last several years and submersible housings are available for nearly every price-range of camera. A further advantage of shooting underwater is that image aberrations, that may compromise normal photography, can actually prove beneficial. In fact, if the camera can be classified as 'expendable', it really pays to experiment with home-brew housings. One shoot involved fitting a Holga medium-format toy camera into a makeshift housing made from plastic freezer bags (equipped with a Plexiglas window). The unit ultimately leaked, but lasted long enough to complete two shoots, and imparted it's characteristic light-streaking and soft-focus effects to a very complimentary environment.