Diving Into Alternative Realities : Leigh Webber On The Ruby Hour Podcast
Did you ever have teacup parties underwater? Today we introduce you to an alternate reality, the world of Leigh Webber. She combined her childhood love of water and her passion for photography into a successful business here in Charleston!
In this episode, we talk about:
the unusual service offering of underwater photography
adapting to constantly changing environments as a photographer
becoming unique to your social media viewers in a world where anyone can take a picture
Leigh Webber is an underwater, lifestyle and fashion photographer based in Charleston, SC! This chick had the courage to literally plunge into an unknown world and start her business, Dive In. Leigh is here to share her journey of how she started with this unique service offering. Here she is!
Diving Into Alternative Realities: Leigh Webber On The Ruby Hour Podcast
Low on time? Jump to the sections of the episode that appeal to you! Be sure to share in the comments your favorite take away!
Leigh Webber On The Ruby Hour Podcast Show Notes:
00:32 Who is Leigh Webber?
1:53 Why underwater photography is a totally different world
3:07 How this creative form of photography took on a life of its own
6:00 Diving into the unknown process of underwater photography
11:40 From a water baby to becoming an underwater photographer
12:08 What’s one of your favorite memories with water growing up?
13:16 Working with first-timers during an underwater shoot
15:25 How to stand out in a world where anyone can take a picture
18:58 How to adapt to changes that come with photographing underwater
22:05 The difference in shooting in the water versus on land
29:46 Keys to owning your own business and taking chances
31:06 Working with people who have a similar vibe and love what you love
33:09 Rolling with the punches during a shoot
35:18 What’s your happy place?
36:56 The struggle of traveling with heavy ass cameras
41:20 How to set yourself up to succeed as a photography business owner
Check out Leigh's portfolio and get to know her more at https://leighwebber.com/dive-in and @leighwebber on Instagram!
Episode Transcription Preview:
Shelby Ring: I'm here with the amazing Leigh Webber and her company is Dive In. Tell us a little bit about your company and your work. And I want you to explain it because it is like the craziest, coolest visual work I have seen in a long time.
Leigh Webber: Thank you. Well, I photograph a lot underwater and so it's a totally different perspective, which is what makes it fun and different I think, and turns it into a little bit more of an unexpected artwork sometimes with the photos.
Leigh Webber: So, I have been a photographer for a long time, maybe 15 plus years here in Charleston and I photographed weddings for many of those years, and families, and I think it just came to a point I wanted to evolve and still be a photographer but do something a little bit different with it, and learning to photograph underwater has its own set of challenges. So, you know, they're fun challenges. It's fun to stay with the same medium of photography but to take it somewhere different and go through all those trials and errors of learning how to do it again just in a different way.
Shelby Ring: Like totally different world.
Leigh Webber: Yes it is, and everything's different. The way the light hits the water, the amount of control I have, which is I have much less control underwater because I'm moving, the other people underwater are moving, no one can stay still, it's different style of communication and even just seeing what you're taking a picture of is different.
Shelby Ring: Are you using a mask, like a snorkel mask or scuba dive gear? How do you like to get rigged up?
Leigh Webber: So, I have a mask on. I don't do the whole scuba gear, which, yeah, a lot of people ask about and it would, I mean that could be cool, but the thing is is you really do need to communicate with people. And so I basically just hold my breath and then come back up. And also want whomever I'm photographing to feel like they can come back up as well because you can really read some body language underwater and if they're uncomfortable, I can tell. And a lot of times I'm photographing kids and so they're kind of up and down anyway.
Shelby Ring: Yeah, for sure. Oh my gosh. So, what the heck? You just woke up one day and you were like, "I'm going to take this art underwater." What was that moment?
Leigh Webber: Right. So, this was probably like five or six years ago, my son was about four and I was doing a 365 day project with him. So, I was photographing him every day and I would post it with a quote and I was trying to do something different every day, you know? And that's a great way to be creative or if you don't feel creative, a great project to give yourself, to photograph something different each day or commit to that. So, halfway through the year, it was probably June, he was taking swim lessons and I was sort of at that point where I felt like I'd taken every possible photo of him. And so, he was doing the swim lesson and I used a GoPro, so I got in during the swim lesson and took a couple pictures on the GoPro.
Leigh Webber: But at that point, GoPro's didn't have a screen on the back and it was really hard to tell what you were doing. You're just sort of blindly-
Shelby Ring: Hoping it worked out.
Leigh Webber: Right, blindly doing it. And, also the quality wasn't as good as my camera, you know, what I was used to, but it was fine. And so I played around with the GoPro for a while, for the summer, and then just decided I needed to get the real housing, you know? And that makes a huge difference because then I'm using the camera that I use every day and it's just in a special housing and so it grew from there. And so I started photographing friends kids. We'd go to the beach and take some pictures there, taking the dogs to the beach and getting in the water with them and posting those and there was a big response with it.
Leigh Webber: And so I started just bringing it with me, the underwater housing to other shoots. So maybe, like I photographed a birthday party a few years ago and it was a pool party and nobody expected me to get in the water, they didn't really know, but I brought it and got in and then suddenly it was fun and different and I feel like you can really get people just at their best and happy and their most real, you know, when they're playing in the water, especially kids. So, I basically started bringing it with me to various shoots that I was already doing and it started to take on a life of its own. So I started hashtagging at Dive In and I think at the same time I was ready to pare back on shooting weddings and so started to tip the balance a little bit.
Shelby Ring: That is so cool. So, what other parts of your life do you take that same approach of diving in? Because it sounds like you just ... It's like you truly, I so appreciate that you took something that's like, you have your trade, you know your camera, you know what you're working with and you literally threw yourself into a different medium, in a different circumstance.
Leigh Webber: Yeah, I feel like life is short and you have to go after these big things that you want. And I think about that a lot, about sort of my dream list of things to do, the bucket list and places I want to go and the things I want to do. So yeah, I don't know, I mean it was a little bit more of a 'jump and the net will appear' type. So, you know, I didn't have a master plan of how this was going to happen, but I kind of like it that way. Anyway, it's the whole serendipity of it, which is a lot like photographing kids underwater and turning those into fine art because you just can't plan that, you know, exactly what the picture's going to look like.
Leigh Webber: And I know a lot of people do underwater photography and it might be very staged or there is a master plan, but I prefer to just let it go where it goes. So, I want to be prepared and under ideal conditions, you know, so you have the sun out and the water's clear and, you know, all those good things. But I don't like to over plan the shoot in general because you have to leave some space for things just to happen. And I think those are the good things. And I feel like part of it too is just the editing process, holding the images down, because used to be, I would take like a thousand pictures if I were photographing a couple kids underwater. I might do maybe seven or 800 now, but still I edit those down pretty heavily to maybe 30 or so that I actually show. And out of those I'll have a couple that are definitely my favorites. So I think that's part of the process, is choosing which images from the shoot that you love and that you share. And that is the art piece of, it's one thing to snap a photo and you know your camera settings, but then you're like, you're telling a story through what you choose to, of all the shots, which ones represented the moment in your interpretation of it.
Leigh Webber: And it's always that idea too of you know, you want to make your client happy but also want to not just make myself happy but create something that I'm proud of. So, I guess it kind of varies. Like if I'm photographing for a commercial client, I'm definitely going to focus on what they need. But I'm also going to make time to get some extra shots to experiment a little bit with it. And the same with families too. We might do the underwater photo shoot with their kids, but then I narrow it down and then we decide which pieces we're going to blow up for their wall. I'm always surprised by people's favorites. I like them to tell me of all these pictures, which ones do you gravitate to?
Leigh Webber: And sometimes people really surprise me with how artsy they are because they might like something where I thought I wasn't sure that you would like that, I love it, but sometimes people have been conditioned to, you know, want to see their eyes and their face and this big old smile underwater, which isn't exactly what I'm trying to do, but you know, so there's a little compromise sometimes in the end, but I try to show what I like.
Shelby Ring: That is so cool. And I know when I first crossed paths with you several months ago, and I like looked at your website, I just remember looking at the commercial work you've done with jewelry and different things underwater, and being so amazed at the content you create.