I grew up landlocked, in South Africa. The ocean wasn't something I had — it was something I waited for. One trip a year, if we were lucky. I'd spend every hour of it in the whitewash, riding a battered old foamie, getting smashed over and over, just to feel that pull for a few more days before we drove home again.

That feeling never left. When I moved to Australia and finally lived by the beach, I thought the waiting was over. But there was a new kind of distance — the gap between loving the water and actually feeling capable in it. I didn't grow up surfing. I didn't grow up diving. I was figuring it out late, often alone, often unsure if I was "allowed" to call myself a surfer or a photographer at all.

During lockdown, with nothing else to do, I finally picked up a board properly — and not long after, an underwater camera. I had no formal training, no community, just curiosity and a willingness to get it wrong in the water until I got it right. What I found on the other side wasn't just a new skill. It was a whole community of women who'd been quietly waiting for the same thing — permission to feel capable in the ocean, camera in hand or not.

That's what DiP Under is built on. Not expertise you're handed from above, but confidence you build in the water, with someone who remembers exactly what it felt like not to have it yet.

Over the past decade, I've worked as a professional photographer across portraiture, surf photography and community projects, and still find deep joy in sharing this work through creative workshops and collaboration. I'm proud to be part of the AUSWIP (Australian Women In Photography) directory, a platform that celebrates leading female and non-binary photographers in Australia. Being part of this community continues to push me creatively and remind me why representation in this space matters.

What I've built since

DiP Underwater Studio exists because I know what it's like to want the water and not yet trust yourself in it. Everything here — the studio, the workshops, the way I work with people — comes back to that.

Connection. To the water, to each other, to the parts of yourself that feel a little braver once you're in it. Whether you're in front of the lens or behind it, this is never just a photoshoot or a lesson. It's the same thing I was looking for on those once-a-year trips to the coast — somewhere I belonged.

Honesty, always. I won't pretend a skill is easier than it is, or that you should already know something you've never been taught. I didn't have anyone hand me the shortcuts. I'd rather just hand them to you.

No rushing. Confidence in the water doesn't happen on a deadline. We hold space for it — one shot, one breath, one wave at a time.

Always curious. I'm still the person who picked up a camera underwater with no idea what I was doing, just to see what would happen. That's the spirit I want you to leave a workshop with — not just new settings, but permission to keep exploring.

If you've ever felt like the ocean was something other people were "allowed" to be confident in — surfers, divers, photographers — and you weren't quite one of them yet, I built this for you.