vonwong

She understood that White-Tipped reef sharks aren't dangerous - basically like swimming with large fish.

There are 440 different known species of sharks... almost all of which aren't dangerous for humans. Knowledge is one of the best weapons against fear!

This was my first attempt shooting large fish, though I have wanted to do something with Manta Rays. Not quite sure how to engineer that one just yet though. gears spinning

Her leg was in a slipknot that was tied to about 10kg of lead - that way we could move the lead wherever we needed to.

She didn't have a knife but could have escaped easily if it ever became necessary.

The water wasn't too cold, I don't know the exact temperature but it did get cold over time. It was particularly bad for Amber as she would be shivering so badly after every iteration.

For the sharks, we had a small cage with dead fish in it. The marine biologist would take fish out and rub it over a rock so that the water would "smell" like food to try and attract the sharks.

We didn't really feed them because if they get full they leave!

The shoot took about 3 days of shooting + 2 days of scouting and prep (testing to see if the sharks were scared of the dress)

Amber is a world class freediver and was quite good at making sure bubbles only happened intermittently. :)

https://www.facebook.com/ambernerissabourke/?fref=ts

Amber Bourke is a multiple Australian freediving record holder. Ranked world #3 in 2013 and 2014 (DNF).

Does that count?

We were also not very deep so the pressure differential was not critical.