I had the chance to be invited by the legendary Russian underwater photographer Viktor “Vitya” Lyagushkin for a dive, during which, he produced the magical image on the left side. This happened at the Red Sea Photo Shoot-out in Eilat. Lyagushkin is a big guy who may even look rough to some people, but when you talk to him, you understand how much sensible he is and when you see him at work you understand how high is the level of professionalism.
The idea was to take a night shot of his sweet wife’s silhouette, while she was standing underwater with an old traditional Russian dress. Viktor has first set up a genuine underwater studio, including 5 Ikelite DS160 flashes standing away, on tripods and connected to the camera with long sync cords.
The model, Bogdana “Snowkitty” Vashchenko, posed at approx 5 meters from Viktor. It was not always easy for her to stand stills as the current was quite strong coming from the South up to North. Professional diver Mowgli Shilo was giving air to Bogdana when needed.
Attired by the light, a lion fish got very close to Lyagushkin, who seized the opportunity to have the spectacular fish together with the model in the frame, and here’s the result. Isn’t that beautiful?
The camera used for this shot was Nikon D3x (full frame) and the lens Nikkor 16mm f2.8 fish-eye. All of this housed by Subal.
Here under the making of the image…in images:
Viktor Lyagushkin is an Official National Geographic Photographer for the Russian magazine, Official Nikon Pro photographer and Subal Team Pro. Previous posts about his amazing and extreme projects can be seen here: Swimming naked with belugas, The Lady of Orda Cave and the incredible making of the naked dive under the ice.