FREE DIVING

A few weeks ago I accompanied my pal Liv Rose on a free diving course down at Portsea. The master mind behind this incredible 2 day STAGE A course is Marlon Quinn from WaterMaarq, who is probably the most calm and collected human to ever do this sport! I met Marlon in December when he fronted at my exhibition in Mornington, and we got chatting. He was super keen to get me involved with some photography down at one of his sessions, so it was the perfect opportunity! 

Now I didn't actually 'do' the course as my brain would probably wig out on concentration between holding my breath for longer than a minute and taking underwater photos, but it's a goal of mine to eventually do the course and make free diving a regular phrase that comes out of my mouth!

Anyway, we jumped on a small boat and headed out to what seemed like the middle of the shipping channel *cue Spirit of Tasmania* and surrounded this tiny orange buoy that would be the centre of the next 4 hours. On my mind at this point, was elegance. Marlon and I had talked about trying to get some elegant shots of graceful free diving, but it was kinda difficult considering the increasingly choppy waves and weight belts we all carried. None the less, when Livvy dived, so did I and it was incredibly calming. I was nervous at first to be out in the middle of the bay, not really knowing what's around me, but that's Marlon's speciality, always making sure we felt calm and safe.  I would watch from the surface Liv disappear and dive to 15 metres, sometimes for minutes, then she would gracefully re-enter my vision and let out a small smile. It was fascinating to watch! Here's what we got :)