I think of myself as a storyteller. And in order to tell each story in the best way, that means I have to get as close as possible to where the story happens. So when I shoot a water-related story, I want to get my head wet to get as near as possible to the action. I don’t want to stay on the side, but I want to feel the current. I want to feel the energy of the waves and I want to see the light from the same angle as my subject to make the spectator feel the moment.
As a photographer, I’ve always looked for gear that adapted to my style and helped me to take images. It has to be simple, light, sturdy and I have to be able to handle it by intuition and I don’t want to change my way of working to how the gear was designed.
So soon after I started with outdoor and adventure photography, I also looked into a way to take my camera gear in water to photograph. Because I knew being in the water would only benefit my images.
Hard cases were on the list of options, but I tried them and they seemed too bulky and heavy, even when being in the water. The feeling of intuition was lost as well because the buttons on my camera were mimicked but not at the exact same place. So I had to adapt to the gear. Plus, hard cases are limited to only one type of body and I like to switch it up depending on the situation
Plastic bag systems were not an option either, because of their lack of quality. I want to be able to trust my gear. It has to give the best optical quality and plunging expensive camera equipment in water with just a plastic bag around it to protect it is not an option to me.
And then I discovered the Outex gear, which allowed me to act the same way as I do on land. It feels natural to paddle out with my camera, I can still feel all my dial buttons, I can make the images that I have in mind.
I get to decide at the very last moment which body and what lenses I want to use before I head into the water and I almost always have a kit in my travel luggage, just in case and because it is so light. Outex is the gear that adapts to me, instead of me having to adapt to my gear.
