Blue Depth

A body under water with the surface visible above it. The distance up to that surface is what the shot is about.

Everything slows down. Hair and clothing lift, movement drags, and the sound the viewer imagines is muffled, which is why the look reads as calm and as pressure at the same time.

Keep the surface line in frame, usually near the top. It tells the viewer how deep the subject is, and without it the shot is only a blue portrait.

Light comes from above and falls away fast, so the subject is lit on top and the water below goes to black. Caustics move across the skin near the surface and disappear with depth.

Red drops out of water first, so the colour runs blue and green with no warmth left in the skin. Small bubbles and suspended particles catch the light and give the water some body.

Use it for a suspended moment, a dream, a memory, or anything about letting go.

Skip it for action. Water takes the speed out of everything in it.

Cool Blue is a grade. The whole frame leans blue and the warmth comes out of the skin, and the scene itself can be anywhere, dry and on land.

Ask whether the subject is in water. A blue grade on a dry scene is Cool Blue. A submerged body with a surface line above it is Blue Depth.

The surface disappears and the shot becomes an ambiguous blue portrait. Say the surface line is visible above them.

The second failure is warm light. Ask for cold blue falloff into darkness below, with the only light coming down from the surface.