Goldfish Series sneak peek

From today. See the full set on the Super Volcano tier tomorrow.

“Hooked”

I wrestled myself out of bed at around 330 this morning, rattled around the house, came back to bed and cuddled with Jeremy for a bit, let the dogs out and spent the next hour preparing for our trip to La Parguera, the mangroves.

At about 7 AM, we hopped in the truck and started on our way. Of course we had to have a quick pitstop at McDonald’s for some coffee and a little breakfast. Nothing like greasy food right before you jump in the ocean! But I knew if we didn’t grab some thing, we both would be starving out there later. It’s not like there’s a 7-Eleven nearby at La parguera.

After we hit the McDonald’s, we realized that this was going to be a long drive. Many of the roads were flooded out, we had to take alternate routes and when we could get through the flooding, the water was well above the top of our wheel well. Eventually we landed on spot, packed everything from the car, walked to the boat rental. Fortunately, they did have a boat this morning so the trip was not in vain. Often times it’s really hard to know whether or not they will be open due to the weather or whether the boats will be already rented out. We just have to show up and see. If there are no boats, we have to change our plans last minute. Thankfully, today they were boats!

Jeremy and I packed the little pontoon boat with a tiny little engine and head out for deeper waters, the water seemed crystal clear as we were gliding a top of it however when we pulled up at our spot, the water was incredibly silty. Which basically means it’s very clear until you step on the ground. Where we film in the mangroves it’s not granular sand, rather it’s silty sand, it acts like mud. It was a very difficult day to capture clear images because of the silt. However, all of the silt did add an extra ghostly affect to the photos. They certainly don’t look tropical but many of them look haunting and ice cold which I love! It gives us a different look than what we normally get in these waters.

It’s an incredible process of time, barometric pressure, science, props, costuming, attitude, physical aptitude etc., if all of these things don’t fall in line at the same time in the same place shoot can be a disaster. Fortunately are always able to salvage some thing from every shoot. And thankfully, this shoot was not affected poorly by the silty water, The look only further enhanced the photo session. Which is not always the case.

I’m thankful for the images we got and I’m really excited to see the video! I’m falling deeper and deeper in love with this goldfish series. I’ve become obsessed with it. It’s all I think about. I don’t even really want to shoot anything else half the time, I just want to be underwater in this costume working with it more and more.

The conditions in the water were absolutely beautiful today, glassy, smooth not much of a current but the conditions really allowed us to play without too much danger considering, we were told it’s sardine season so there were more creatures out there today than normal. We didn’t see anything too exciting other than some beautiful fish.

My biggest issue today was the costume itself. Sometimes trying to strike certain positions or attain certain movements, I can get caught up in the layers of the skirts on my costume. It all looks beautiful and effortless but I can’t tell you how many times I panicked because I found myself caught up. It seemed like there was so much costume and prop but it was difficult for me to balance at all. I think I just need to come out a few more times with the specific set in different circumstances. I can feel myself getting used to the length of the skirts but this is definitely the longest underwater skirts I’ve had so I do have to pay extra attention and make sure I don’t get wrapped up in them and that they don’t cover my head or face. It’s a lot to balance but I’m really happy with how everything turned out today. This photo is at the very end of the under water burlesque portion of the shoot. More to come as we edit!