Six Nights At the Bottom of the Ocean

Self portrait.
Title inspired by Explosions in the Sky.

I know I've already submitted today, but I couldn't help but add this one. I've had some hard shoots in the past, but this one has far surpassed all of them.

Imagine, you're wearing a nice black dress and you have this crazy thought: "Hey, why don't I take advantage of the 40 minutes of sunlight left and jump in the pool and take pictures of myself floating serenely in the water?" I soon realized this sounded nice, and then I did it. And it sucked out my soul. I'd set up the camera, pressed the ten second timer, jumped in and barely had time to pose before the shutter went off. And then I'd have to get out of the pool--sopping wet, obviously--and then see how the picture turned out. I had to be careful not to get the camera wet with my hands, which is a lot harder than it sounds. AND being at sunset with weird lighting, it took forever just to test shoot. Finally, I got the settings on my camera right (I refuse to use automatic mode). But by then, my arms were tired of pushing myself out of the pool, I was exhausted and grouchy, and my mom's dog would not stop lamenting about her absence and distracted me with cries of pain. If the water looks turbulent, it's because I had just barely jumped in and managed to not look entirely ridiculous.

Self portraiture sucks. Give me a model!

Edit: ~Lady-Tam has done some lovely fictional paragraphs based off this piece entitled Out of the Depths She Came.