I don’t do much swimsuit photography, but I *really* don’t do a lot of shoots where the model is in water. Ideally, this water would come in the form of a pool as opposed to a river or a swamp, but sometimes rivers and swamps are all you have easy access to.

I live about 50 yards away from the Des Plaines river in Riverside. Come spring, the Des Plaines floods over its banks and does so in pretty impressive fashion. Soccer fields and forests are turned into weird bayous that look like they have no place in northern Illinois. Naturally, I try to shoot in these temporary environs as much as possible. This requires a hearty breed of model who is comfortable trudging into cold river water with God knows what on the ground.It also requires me to be almost completely submerged in the water if I want my camera to be near water level… which I do.

This shoot with this model took place in late April–note that none of the trees even have buds on them–and the water was cold. It wasn’t too bad when you were moving or when just your legs were in it, but kneeling down in it was a horrible shock. So after one look, I went back to my house and put on my dry suit. I can only imagine how this must have looked to an outsider: me in a dry suit directing a model in a see through dress on how to sit on a stool in the middle of a huge pool of river water. The end result though is perfection.