Dolphin Ride

A person and a large sea animal moving together at the surface. The appeal is contact with something powerful that has agreed to carry you.

Speed is what sells it. Spray, a wake and a body leaning into the motion all say the animal is doing the work.

Keep the action at the waterline. Part of the animal is above the surface and part below, spray comes off the point where it breaks through, and a wake trails behind the pair.

Daylight is direct and the water takes its colour from the sky, so a bright day gives you the saturated blue the look depends on. Light through the surface puts moving caustics across the animal's back.

The rider is balanced mid motion. Knees bent, weight forward, one hand on the animal, nothing about the body settled.

Use it for a summer piece, an escape, or any frame that wants freedom with no vehicle in it.

Skip it underwater. Below the surface there is no spray and no wake, so the speed disappears and the shot becomes a swim.

Penguin Ride is the same idea moved into the cold. Ice instead of open water, flat grey daylight instead of sun, and a stride instead of a swim.

Judge it on the surface the animal moves through. Open water with spray is Dolphin Ride. Ice under a walking gait is Penguin Ride.

The model puts the pair underwater, where the whole look collapses. Say at the surface, with spray and a wake behind them.

The second failure is a static pose. Ask for the body balanced mid motion with the animal breaking the surface, or you get a photograph of somebody holding on to an animal.