PHOTOSTORIES
Professional wedding and magazine photographer Brad Wakefield takes his camera underwater in his spare time to learn new skills
Istruggled at school but was passionate about art. I signed up to photography and something clicked – it felt like for the first time at the age of 17 I had connected with a subject.
I went on to work at Jessops, and by the age of 21, I was working for the UK’s biggest independent press agency. I’m now a freelance photographer based in the south-west, specializing in weddings, and PR magazine commissions.
In my spare time, I’ve been taking on a personal project, diving underwater with my camera around the south-west of England. Our coastline is full of colourful, vibrant and interesting sea life. The seals, which are always so playful and inquisitive, were photographed at Lundy Island.
Personal welfare is paramount. While it is important to keep your camera and lenses safe, for which I use an Ikelite underwater housing, your own safety comes first, whether snorkelling or diving. It’s easy to end up in a situation where you’re trying to do too much, where you’ll end up exhausted and in a problematic situation. I’ve left the camera on the boat before when I felt it would hinder me in the water; going down without my camera allows me to work on my diving technique, too. The calmer I am in the water, the better the results I get. The biggest challenge while scuba diving is keeping an eye on your air and depth in the water. It’s also important to have good buoyancy while taking photographs.
My most memorable experience was my first dive as a newly qualified open water scuba diver. I went on my first dive with my scuba club, Scuba Blue. We crossed from Ilfracombe to Lundy; the crossing was long and choppy.
This was my first dive in the sea and I was nervous but I had my camera and jumped in with my dive buddy. The light was dancing through the water, bright blue warm shafts of ligh
