I´m Noustha a Dutch underwater photographer. While I was traveling through Australia I learnt kite surfing. This was my inspiration for a new challenging underwater photo shoot.
Blade kites gave me a kite to work with for this project. I wanted to do the photo shoot in the beautiful lagoon of Cocos Keeling Islands (Australia). Luckily I found enthusiastic kite surfers on the Island to create a good team.
For the whole team, including me, it was the first time that we put a kite under water. The only way to find out how to do this was by trial and error. We did the photo shoot three times. Every time we learnt something that we needed to improve.
The photos were taken at a depth of 10 meters. We all went down with our dive gear. Only the models needed to take off their air supply and trust the safety diver to give them air between the photos.
Kitesurfing under the water is totally different from the 'normal' kite surfing. Of course it is hard for the models to hold their breath and have struggles with the water. But it was really fun to do the tricks. In the air you can only do a trick for a few seconds but underwater you can hold them for a long time, because there seems to be no gravity.
Have a look at the backstage video to see how it is done. And of course at the result of all the work.
We had to overcome a lot of difficulties working this out but it was definitely worth it!
More info: noustha.com
