Bahamian Underwater Photographer & Freediver Andre Musgrove

André Musgrove is an Underwater Photographer & Filmmaker,  professional freediver, certified PADI Scuba Diving Instructor, Spearfisherman, Private Dive Guide & Underwater Stuntman born & based in The Bahamas.

In episode four host Brett Stanley chats with underwater freedive photographer Andre Musgrove about his life growing up in the Bahamas, photographing marine life and models together, the joys of living on a sailboat, and the problem with the Bahamian postal system.

Discuss the episode in our facebook group.

Follow Andre’s work here: Website, Instagram, and Facebook

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About Andre Musgrove

Growing up diving in The Bahamas gives him invaluable knowledge of the best underwater locations across the country. From shipwrecks to sharks, coral reefs to blue holes, plane wrecks to marine wildlife hot spots, André can ensure his clients find the most ideal locations and underwater subjects needed for any production.

André is best known for his unique style of shooting creative concepts underwater with freedivers/divers as the subjects, interacting with marine wildlife and exploring the underwater environment. He specializes in shooting while freediving (on breath hold), allowing closer,  less invasive encounters and one-of-a-kind interactions with sharks, rays, fish, turtles, dolphins and other marine animals. With over 1,000 logged scuba dives and more than a decade of freediving & spearfishing experience, he has a distinctive edge for capturing a variety of underwater scenarios.

André believes that the human body is a person’s greatest asset and takes his fitness life very seriously. This enables him to easily work in the water for hours, following animals and functioning at the highest level in physically demanding situations doing whatever it takes to get the shot.

If the Bahamas is the destination for your next production, campaign or dive trip, André being locally born & based eliminates costly international flights and film/ work permits for his clients. André is also available to work internationally and with his professionalism, interpersonal skills and unique point of view, he is a great asset to any production team.

Follow him  on Instagram to follow the dives.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxdRQHihlWU/?igshid=fi4stamo5t9d

Podcast Transcript

Brett Stanley: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the underwater podcast. Everyone we’re into episode four and at the moment it’s a bit of a crazy time in our lives. I hope everyone’s saying safe and sane out there in the middle of this virus lockdown. I know that it’s different for everyone and depending on what country you’re in. It seems like everywhere. Is handling it differently and taking different approaches to try and slow the spread of this virus. I also know that by talking about this on the podcast so much, I’m really dating this season that it’s really, deep in the covid-19 sort of theme and I’m okay with that. This is a bit of a, time capsule, I guess of this time of our lives mainly because. The people that I’m speaking to really only have time to speak to me at the moment because they’re not working either so with this lockdown, I’m getting a bit of a snapshot of how people are feeling in this underwater creative industry. And how they’re dealing with this whole quarantine thing.
As I talked to people on the show, I really get an idea of how much creativity drives their lives and that it’s that need to create. That’s forced a lot of us into the businesses that we do something. That’s not only about creating beautiful imagery, but also about creating a livelihood. That we’ve turned this skill that we have into something that can pay for our our mortgages and pay for our kids to go to school and pay my rent. It’s that sort of drive to create. That is really quite confronting when it’s taken away from you.
What I’m finding though is a resilience through this adversity, like a seedling popping up through a concrete slab there need to create is almost unstoppable and whether it’s going through old files and finding new edits or up-skilling new techniques, or even just taking self portraits, it’s an itch that needs to be.
Be scratched. All of this to say that I believe today’s guest, Andre Musgrove has hit the quarantine jackpot. Andre grew up in The Bahamas, he’s, uh, underwater photographer, a cinematographer and a free diver. He is currently hunkering down with his friends in two sail boats off the coast of The Bahamas and basically shooting every day spear fishing swimming.
And just creating some awesome content in quarantine, which I think is amazing. It also makes me feel sick and very jealous because he’s getting to do this every day. But let me let him tell you all about it. Here’s my interview with Andre muds growth.
Brett : [00:02:33] andre, welcome to the show.
Andre Musgrove: [00:02:35] Thanks for having me, Ryan.
Brett : [00:02:37] give me an idea of where you are at the moment. Cause I know you travel around and you, I think you might be living on a sailboat.
Andre Musgrove: [00:02:43] Yeah, so right now I’m in The Bahamas on one of my friends, catamaran where out here quarantine, trying to stay away from all the craziness that’s happening right now and trying to keep all of those safe Haven safe from not having too much contact on mind. I’m trying to stay healthy and updated and just work with all the updates as they comma of what we can do and what we can’t do, where we could go and we kind of go on just you’re taking advantage of the time.
Well. I wouldn’t say free time, but the more time given because aren’t really much stuff happening to like focus on creating some more content or a diving that we thankfully can still do. Living on a sailboat, on just taking advantage of the time where kind of the world stops on to catch up with some stuff, reconnect with friends, um, create new content.
So hopefully when these stuff Clare up, it’s kinda like a re kind of like a little restart or reset button. I guess.
Brett : [00:03:43] Yeah. It’s like a forced little, um, sabbatical, like you’ve got to kind of take stock of everything
Andre Musgrove: [00:03:47] exactly.
Brett : [00:03:48] And how many people are with you on the sailboat
Andre Musgrove: [00:03:51] so right now it’s three people and we’re here with my, on my buddies, you know, David, he’s, he’s out here too on his, um, mono hall with two other people. So that’s kinda like our crew right now. We’re in two separate boats, but we AE trying to stick together. Um, because we need to, with Holy, crazy things happening.
And so that’s, that’s about it. So it’s three, four, seven on my space degree.
Brett : [00:04:16] Wow. Over two
Andre Musgrove: [00:04:17] Yeah. Between two boats.
Brett : [00:04:18] Yeah. And this is kind of a, I mean, outside of having a a virus stopping you from going. To sit in places you, you kind of spend a lot of time out on the water anyway.
Andre Musgrove: [00:04:28] Yeah, I do. Um, between our underwater photography jobs or under our cinematography dogs, also, I do private dive guide work. So for free divers or spare fishermen and scuba divers, so I’m often out on the water, living on a boat, on a boat. Anyway, so it’s not too like, it’s not too far fetched of what I usually do where I am right now, but it’s just like an indifferent zone because the whole world is learning something new or how to act or react to all these new rules and stuff.
Brett : [00:04:58] Yeah, totally. So is that how you kind of grew up? Did you grow up on the water? Give us an idea of of how you got into underwater, photography and cinematography.
Andre Musgrove: [00:05:08] Yeah. So I grew up in the Bahamas. I grew up, um, adventuring above water on the water. I got me in the, into free diving on spear fishing with thanks to my dad. My dad was a recreation that was spare fishermen. Um, spearfishing and Obama’s is popular just because we have, like, we have really cool and clear on the water.
We have a health and Marine life. Uh, fishing is the third largest industry in The Bahamas. I never did it commercially, nor is my dad ever done it commercially. But I grew up watching him do it and he taught me about spear fishing and I had a big interest in it. So I grew up doing it all my life. I, and I also developed the interest in it.
Cameras when I was in, I’d say early high school or so, and I just started shooting and stuff around the yard, like going out in the yard with like a little camera and pointing shoot camera. I had taken pictures there and then I started shooting pictures of my friends who would play all these different sports in high school and then.
When I graduated high school, I didn’t know what in the world I wanted to do. I knew I didn’t want to go to university cause I saw it. Think I thought it was so boring and just like, like I, I really did not want to go. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I just started. Okay, what are the two things that I like to do?
I know I like to dive and I like to be in the water all the time and I like photography, so I kind of just merge both of those together. Um, there’s a dive shop here. Oh, an Island that I live on that has an underwater photography lab as in, at the dive shop, they have a photo lab department. Um, the photographers there, I basically shoot underwater photo.
Is this like the more, um, higher end if photography equipment that I wouldn’t have access to myself about was just to kind of like try to buy it myself and figure it out from there. Um, and I worked there for. A bit and there was learning all the ins and out about underwater photography and cinematography.
I got to work with a lot of different people and different big bronze or TV shows or whatever and meet a lot of. Cool people there, and it’s just mainly being in the water every single day with a camera, with a DSLR, with a mirrorless camera, and it’s housing, different variety of cameras, and just learning how to use all of them in different scenarios, whether it’d be the scuba diving or free diving, taking pictures of snorkelers or shark dives, um, recording videos for like a editorial project or something like that.
Uh, and. Yeah, it was, it was great. It was kinda like a, it’s kinda like college, like a hands on in the field university thing where you were at Cambridge, like bunch of different equipment, sometimes equipment. It’s like. Good. Like sticky. Like if it’s a housing, some buttons are like super sticky. You have to shoot in manual mode, but you can change the shutter speed so you have to compensate with this.
So it’s kinda like a army style learning how to actually shoot on underwater, um, photo and video. Yeah. I kind of like a bootcamp, but I saw it as a really good opportunity and a blessing where I knew that once. I was able to get my own equipment that didn’t have all the faults of the housing and stuff with the information that would kind of like let loose on most to do whatever I want to do because the equipment can actually do it in the first place.
Brett : [00:08:29] going to respond properly and not get you
Andre Musgrove: [00:08:32] But it was an amazing opportunity to learn that way. Like it wasn’t like the most ideal situation, but I just tried to look at it positive where I was like, Hey, having a like this way is actually really cool to get to learn. Pretty well how to adopt and do the different things and all that kind of stuff.
So
Brett : [00:08:48] Yeah. And so how long ago was that?
Andre Musgrove: [00:08:51] I think I resigned in 2017 and October.
Brett : [00:08:56] Okay. Yeah.
So it’s still still not that long
Andre Musgrove: [00:08:59] Yeah. Not that long ago. From then. From there, I’ve, I resigned to freelance and basically do my own thing in the underwater photography, cinematography, and dive guide realm. I’m based here in the bombers.
Brett : [00:09:12] And I think that’s when I started to see your work. Cause we have a mutual friend, David Lang lowers and they say his last name
Andre Musgrove: [00:09:18] Language
Brett : [00:09:19] he’s French Canadian
Andre Musgrove: [00:09:21] Yeah. He’s French Canadian.
Brett : [00:09:23] Um, Um, and he’s this, this great free diver, and he’s, uh, he’s was leading, um, you know, he sales and he like, uh, what do you call it? Like, um, he’s a ship’s captain for a lot of the sailboats and stuff.
And that you guys ended up working together. Was that right?
Andre Musgrove: [00:09:34] Yup. I met David through social media and we went out to dive one time and I realized we work together pretty well underwater, and that’s when we started shooting to go there. Basically, we started shooting. Um, most of the stuff that are more related to the style that I do now, when I used to work at the dive shop, most of the work was just photos of scuba divers, scuba diving, or tourists, tourists being in the water.
Um, and our really opportunity to really express like the creative ideas I had in mind or really have. Like a model or a person able to actually perform to do the things that I had in mind to do. So, I mean, we started to work together. We were able to accomplish advi using both of our skills to start to do really cool stuff.
And that’s ran. I started putting out a lot of stuff that’s more most similar to the work that I put on now. It involves a free diver with a Marine animal or a free diver and a Marine environment with a unique concept underwater.
Brett : [00:10:37] Yeah. Which is beautiful, and that sort of work that is, um, so eye-catching, but it’s also stuff that would totally went viral, right. Like you just some of the oval shots and some of your videos. Um, just totally just took off,
Andre Musgrove: [00:10:51] yeah. Some of them are where I’m pretty well, really quickly, um, which is, which is cool. Like I, I’m just, I feel totally blessed by every day and expect. Like it wasn’t the goal, like, okay, less do this and try to go viral as hard as possible. It’s just like, what’s like a really cool idea that we enjoy doing that we think is really cool and then let’s share it basically.
And then that’s usually how it goes with stuff. And people seem to be pretty receptive of it, so it’s pretty cool. Especially with social media now with how fast things going get shared around and stuff. It’s a good thing and a bad thing depending on what you’re going for. But in this case with like, I guess like content, creating a photography, it’s a pretty cool thing.
Brett : [00:11:35] Yeah. what was one of your first. things that went viral.
Andre Musgrove: [00:11:40] Uh, I think it was a photo I did with David, uh, with him doing a skateboard, Han plant underwater with sharks around, and we did a photo Caribbean reef sharks. Yeah, a shipwreck. And NASA is famous for like having shocks around, uh, and you can attract sharks there to be and all that kind of stuff. So I think that’s the first piece of content that went viral because you also did a video to that shot because we knew people were going to think that the shot was Photoshop and often and early.
Early and often I, we’ve had people say, Oh, this photo is Photoshop, or that photo is Photoshop, but we try to always shoot a video of whatever the concept is kind of as like a proof to the situation that I don’t Photoshop images as in like compensate the images or I two photos together and put a fake shark there or something like that.
She just not my style. I also, we as in me, David and my friends are distributed. We really enjoy the challenge of like having to die of again and again and again and shoot again and again and again just to get like the, what we would consider like the perfect shot or the most ideal shot. And yeah, so I think there’s the photo with the skateboard on the hot implant underwater with the shark going past was pretty cool.
And also with the. Video to compliment it. It did pretty well cause at a photo video thing, basically combo pocket
Brett : [00:13:16] what’s your kind of process for doing that? Are you solely primarily thinking about getting that photo and then you’ll do another one to do the video? Or are you kind of mixing and matching? How do you work out, which is going to be the primary thing, the video or the, or the steel.
Andre Musgrove: [00:13:30] So, depending on their project, if it’s a, it would usually be a photo. I doubt that that comes up first. So let’s say for that particular photo with the shark on the skateboard, we thought of David and I thought of the photo eye, the actual photo on how to do it. They can be high. Died, Dale. Okay. This is what you’re gonna wear.
This is how this is the skateboard you’re going to use. And then having the shark as kind of like a wild card, we like, okay, I just want the shark to be like this, like just to swim past in this area. And so we need to redo it enough times until the shots are in his pocket like this. And then we usually prioritize getting the photo just because it’s like a lot harder to freeze time.
And actually get like the animal and our situation. Get the animal close enough so you actually see what’s going on. And so after we got the photo, we actually got the photo much quicker than I thought. Like, well, we actually did the die much quicker than I thought. The dive total time is like 45 minutes.
We need to do one dive. Um, it was a bit of a. I mean, it could be, it could be a sketchy situation is something I definitely don’t recommend anybody to do or try at home if you don’t have the experience to do it. Because David and I were basically the only people down there. We, that was on that particular shoot.
We did use scuba equipment, so I had on a scuba tank with my BCD, with my camera, and I was obviously a photographer and shooting the video, but I was also David’s safety diver. David was his own safety diver, and I was, I also had the shark bait, so I was humming and feeding the sharks to attract them around thirst.
So it was basically like a two man team. And we only did that because of our experience with sharks. Like, I have a lot experience shooting and swimming or scuba diving or free diving, even spear fishing around sharks on it, especially at that particular um. Location. And so does David have a lot of experience interacting, feeding, guiding with big sharks or any reef sharks or nurse sharks, tiger sharks or whatever, and also underwater modeling and free diving and scuba diving.
So with those kind of like. Skills together. That’s the only reason. I’m probably one of the few people I would even ever try that with. I, everything went, like we had all this safety measures in place of if something was to happen, um, we knew what we would do. We would, you know, how far do we need to get there and all that kind of stuff.
But nothing even came close to happening because we made sure we took all the safety precautions in place outside of us being like. Our own safety divers and all that kinds of stuff, and we, it went, it went pretty well. We got the shot, like the actual photo, I think after four tries, four tries of like David going up to do the hand upon and coming down, breathing from the regulator, you know, going up, coming back down again.
I think we got it in three or four tries and then we did the video twice as in we did, I did two shot, two takes of the video, or I just saw him around David doing the thing. And then we went up, we did our safety stuff, and then we went up. And it was, it was pretty cool. Like that was a probably the most intense, logistical, logistically intense shoot that I’ve done so far, just cause there’s so much involved and only like two people to, to do it.
Um, but it was also probably one of the safest without doubt. We
Brett : [00:17:02] because you were both so onto it, and you’re both so experienced then.
Andre Musgrove: [00:17:05] Yeah, so it was, it was really cool and really fun. We had, we had it, um, our friends above there, like four of our friends above who are experienced freedivers were watching us and they were watching everything and they think we could
Brett : [00:17:15] So you did have safety in in some way. It just wasn’t there with
Andre Musgrove: [00:17:19] exactly.
Brett : [00:17:19] What sort of depth were you in there?
Andre Musgrove: [00:17:21] We’re about at 45, 50 feet of water where we need a tissue. And the visibility was good that day. Like we started here and Nassau, so it was like a hundred plus visibility. You can see everything around just for like a mile away.
Brett : [00:17:36] Yeah. I love how you, how you just understate that The Bahamas clarity, like it was pretty good that day. It was like a hundred fate, whereas everywhere else is like, it was pretty good that day. I can see my
Andre Musgrove: [00:17:47] Yeah. Yeah, I definitely don’t like, I don’t forget it though. Like I really, I really do see it as a blessing. I’m super thankful for that because I’ve been in places, whether it be is a bit of these, not that great. I haven’t been where, like I’ve been in a few situations where, okay, I’ll barely see my hand by, it’s usually not the most ideal places to be, nor that fun.
So I do know how bad it could be, but I prefer, obviously Claire, the better
Brett : [00:18:15] Yeah, and I think you’ve got an, I feel like you’ve hit the jackpot in terms of where you were born because having shot in The Bahamas myself, and being just so blown away by the, the clarity of it and the landscape and just the, the wildlife and everything that is there, I feel like you’re in this little treasure trove of, um, of amazingness.
Andre Musgrove: [00:18:34] Yeah. Kind of depending on how you see
Brett : [00:18:38] Yeah. I think there’s probably good, good and bad things for
Andre Musgrove: [00:18:40] Yeah, for sure.
Brett : [00:18:41] Yes, sir. What, what would you say would be some of the downsides to being where you are.
Andre Musgrove: [00:18:46] I mean in The Bahamas, it’s just the like the cost of living is a lot here. Like we are such a small nation. We kind to like produce all, all this stuff that we need. So most of the stuff that The Bahamas needs, or there’d be food supply as cars, whatever it has to be imported. And. So like a lot of things are more expensive cause people have to cover the companies with the cover that import rates and all that kind of stuff.
And then other than that. I mean that that kind of affects a lot. So it’s just like gas is more expensive, food is more expensive. Finding a place to stay is more expensive. Um, all that kind of stuff. But that’s, to me, that would be the only negative. I prefer to look at the positive where like we have consistently really good weather, like sunshine, um, sign and see clear water for what I drew in underwater photography world kind of angle in a good position.
So I try to look at the positive more than all of the. Hard stuff, I guess, and just focus on that and keeps, keeps the mood happy and good.
Brett : [00:19:51] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, and what about getting equipment and stuff? Like if your CSA, say if you need, other than like indeed new O ring or something is broken on your camera, or you’ve got an idea for something and you need a piece of equipment to be able to do it, how easy is it to get stuff there?
Andre Musgrove: [00:20:06] Yeah. It’s not that easy. Like you can obviously order it and ship it, but with like detoxes of what? Like for example, let’s say underwater housing and stuff, it’s like a 45%. Talks on that to import it to, I mean, you have a good idea of how much underwear the housing’s already costs. And thankfully cameras themselves are duty free, but for some reason they don’t count underwater housing parts for cameras as camera equipment.
So it’s, it’s kinda weird just cause like. The whole system in The Bahamas a lot. Well, most of the systems in The Bahamas with the government are super old school. And like you kinda have to like put in a request to see if it’s something not do would change and they will have to go through a bunch of different paperwork and it’s like a whole mass kind of thing.
So like getting equipment in pieces to The Bahamas could be pretty difficult and it is pretty difficult, especially when you’re dealing with such expensive. Um. Equipment aren’t duty free, and I was, would have time to get here. Like our postage system is not that great and all that kind of stuff. So it’s cheaper just to, well, I wouldn’t even say cheaper, but it may be easier just to like go to the States or wherever you’re going to need to buy the thing and then fly back with it and then pay your custom duties when you get there.
So at least you get harbored the thing with you the whole time or something. But that’s about
Brett : [00:21:30] than waiting for it to turn up and come through the postal system.
Andre Musgrove: [00:21:33] Or get lost.
Brett : [00:21:34] Yeah. Right. And then have you had stuff get lost in the, in the postal system.
Andre Musgrove: [00:21:38] Um, only really small stuff. And thankfully they weren’t anything like to do with my camera equipment. It’s just been smaller items. So thankfully I’ve been lucky with that.
Brett : [00:21:47] Yeah. So speaking of camera equipment, what are you actually shooting on? What are you using?
Andre Musgrove: [00:21:52] So right now I’m shooting with a Canon one DX Mark too. For primarily the video side of the work. I do. I know it kind of five B Mark for both with a variety of Canon L series lenses, uh, not ACAM housings for an underwater,
Brett : [00:22:11] How many housings do you have? More than more than
Andre Musgrove: [00:22:14] I hope for, for both cameras.
Brett : [00:22:16] you’re right. And what lenses do you tend to stick with? Do you have favorites or are you kind of swapping and changing depending on what you need.
Andre Musgrove: [00:22:23] so I usually use between the Canon eight to 15 and a Canon 16 to 35 version three most of my free diving shots, or if I’m going free diving and shooting, taking video or photo, I usually put on the eight to 15 I shoot on the 59 is a fish. It’s a fish islands, and I really, I really like. Or do you use most of the places that I shoot, I really like the wide angle, like as wide as you can go kind of thing.
And also to show like the visibility on the water on just to capture a lot more in the frame. So they are eight to 50 and lands helps with DOD. And then if I’m shooting video. More like probably primarily video that day. I would use the 16 to 35 because there’s a little bit more, you still get wide angle, but you can go on a 35 band and it’s more versatile.
And then I also used a 24 to Canon 24 to 70 lens every now and again. And I also have a one I didn’t me the 100 millimeter macro lens, Schumacher or Tyro stuff.
Brett : [00:23:27] Right? Yeah. Do you tend to take two housing’s damn with you or will you just swap and come up surface and swap out the camera and then go back
Andre Musgrove: [00:23:36] No, I would usually have just one housing down with me. Uh. Depending on what I’m doing, I, I usually just have one housing with me, like wherever I go, if it’s like a shoot where I know I’m doing a lot of video, but I also may shoot some photo. I would just take the one DX, I’m just going to this space.
Sense of it, but if I had the opportunity to bring both housings, then I would bring both housing just because the megapixels on the five D are more, I know if I have that flexibility and it’s on a hostel, then it’s good to have and shape it that instead of the one Dex or photo.
Brett : [00:24:10] Right. So, so generally you would know if you’re going on a trip, you’d, you’d kind of know what you’d need to
Andre Musgrove: [00:24:15] Yeah, exactly. Most of the trips I go on, if I, if I’m traveling, I just carry my one DX with the housing and then I’ll carry my five D without the housing just in case I need to shoot topside stuff for something like that.
Brett : [00:24:27] Um, Um, and what do you do for lighting?
Andre Musgrove: [00:24:29] For most of the lighting that I shoot in is ambient light. So. I rarely ever even house drove the torch to my camera just because they are, they, it’s a lot of drag in the water when free diving and how most of the days go when I’m shooting. It’s like a lot of swimming up and down, diving up and down, um, following Marine life or bouncing from reef to reef or shipwreck the shipwreck.
And like. Maybe like penetrating racks, so it’s kind of easier to stop, I guess, smaller, more low profile setup, and then I’ll have to pull or drag a bunch of heavy extra heavy equipment through the water, like arms, strobes, st cables, all that kind of stuff. But if I do use strobes, I use a CNC YSD two strobes with the, uh, a fiber optic cable.
Brett : [00:25:18] Right. So your housing has the fiber optic
trigger and then you can,
Yeah.
And do you just, you generally just keep them on the, on the housing if you’re using them, or do you get them off the
Andre Musgrove: [00:25:28] No, I take them off every time I used to. I used to really, when I used to work at a dollar shop, it used to be like really scary to take them off in between eyes. I had always read like doing it wrong or having a leak or something like that just because it has happened before. I that dog shop I used to work to put in, mainly because the equipment was kinda like poorly maintained.
Um, but now I like, I’m fine, like I know what to do and I don’t care to take them on, on off and it’s not really that much of a hassle. So I take them off every time, just so I can have just the camera body itself with a dome and extension ring and stuff.
Brett : [00:26:06] Um, with the lighting, I love that you just using ambient most of the time and it’s, it’s such a, I’d never really thought about the free diving drag sort of situation. Cause generally if you’re on scuba you don’t really think about that cause you’re already basically a big weight in the water anyway. Um, is there certain times of the day that you prefer to shoot to be able to get that, the lighting that you, that you’d like.
Andre Musgrove: [00:26:26] Yeah. So depending on the shot, depending on the depth and depending on where I’m shooting is when I would decide when is the best time to shoot underwater. So like, let’s use the situation being in The Bahamas. Um. I like to shoot shallower stuff in the morning cause the light.
It’s like if the visibility is good on the water and there’s a lot of sunshine is really clear on the lighting, kind of when the water shines through the water. It’s really kind of like a majestic fantasy look without even having to do any of that and posts and I really like how the sun rays come in.
It’s not too harsh. Um, you can still, you can shoot into the sun without it being too hard, but you can get, you can still get like the gold, orange color from the sunlight, um, in the photo. Um
Brett : [00:27:13] uh, those kind of rays come
Andre Musgrove: [00:27:14] Exactly. And that would be, the depth would be like between like zero to 20 feet basically. After that it doesn’t really moderate cause it would may be a little bit too dark.
If it’s too early, I’d be too dark. And then for a deeper stuff on noon for me works best just where the sun is high. I’m shooting straight down, cutting through the water so you can kind of get good light on everything you want to do. And then depending on the situation in the evening, uh, like around sunset lighting is when the water kinda has, like, if you’re in deeper water, at least not shallow water.
If you’re in deeper water, the water kinda has like a greenish hue, greenish yellow hue that blends into blue. Um, I, the surface. I actually have a sort of photo there with my friend David with like a a reef shark swimming overhead, and I was like the green light right behind the shark. That was around sunset time and that was
pretty cool.
Brett : [00:28:13] Yeah. Um, and that’s with the, so that’s at the sunset, but the sun is still shooting through the
Andre Musgrove: [00:28:18] Yeah, correct. It was about like a sunset at seven, for example. Or we should, we were shooting probably at like six 20 ish, six 30 ish. So it was kinda like pretty low. Um, but still visible on the order.
Brett : [00:28:30] Oh, interesting. So when I was shooting open water stuff in The Bahamas, I found that the mid day sun was way too harsh for me. Um, is there something that you’re doing to compensate for that, or is it just that the certain depth kind of helps to diffuse
Andre Musgrove: [00:28:45] think, I think a certain depth, like honestly, when the sun is midday and you’ll shallow it, it’s, it is harsh. Like it’s pretty intense, especially if you’re shooting a white sign. Cause everything’s like blown on highlights. Even if even when you get natural eyes, sometimes he could be really, really too bright.
Um, but for deeper stuff. I think it kind of diffuses the deeper barrier or, well it does diffuse to DP you go, but I don’t really have any pro for the concepts that I try to go for. At least. I don’t really have a problem with a mid day sun, so I would just like on a normal day of shooting, unless it’s like, okay, well I want this lighting in the morning cause we’re shallow or that the lighting in the evening.
I don’t really even think about the lighting between, let’s say. 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM I just shoot whatever. I generally wouldn’t want to cause the lighting would be fine for what I, what I’m shooting at least. So the concept I
Brett : [00:29:47] Right? Yeah. So you really just thinking if we’re going to be shallow, then I’ll probably do it in the morning or the
evening and everything else is fine. Any other
Andre Musgrove: [00:29:55] Yeah. Basically.
Brett : [00:29:56] That’s nice. That’s cool. And when you’re shooting, are you, do you tend to expose, like are you shooting manually with manual settings or any kind of, um, assisted camera
Andre Musgrove: [00:30:08] No, I always shoot in manual mode just cause I still would have learned to do it when I was working in the dive shop. Also, it’s, it’s to me a lot easier in a way where I tried to. I w w I did dire shop. I used to work too, and I was basically like in underwater photography school, if you want to call it back.
I’m learning every day how to shoot and stuff. We were shoot like the . What was the, the turnover time was basically like five minutes after we got back to land and uploaded the, uh, photos. So they, there was no editing involved, there was no post-production, there was nothing like you have to shoot the photo exactly the way that it was going to be purchased or shared or used or whatever, because you had no time to actually edit or post for post produce.
So.
Brett : [00:30:57] I can see. Are y’all shooting photos for the guests or the, for the divers that are coming through the shop? Is that
Andre Musgrove: [00:31:01] Exactly. And then the goal was basically to try to get the guest to see the photos before they leave, which would probably be like 20 minutes of getting back to the dark. So every single photo that you shot in camera needed to be basically good enough where it looked like a final piece. So your stroke positions needed to be good.
You have to make sure you’re. Um, there’s not a bunch of box scatter in the water and the strobes catch it. If you do use strobes, the composition needs to be good. Um, the least amount of bod pictures you can take that would save your time and not to have to go through and delete all the bad pictures, the better.
Um, so it’s kinda like. Like a one shot kind of thing. Like you shoot this photo of you press this button, this is a photo that you’re going to have to keep and it needs to be as close as possible to perfect, and you’re going to have no time basically to review it and it needs to be get out there. So with any shooting in manual mode and also with like bogged down, like with the fall team.
By the maintained equipment was a bit difficult, but now what? Based on what I do and how I try to do what I do, shooting in manual mode is like easiest way. And I tried to shoot in that same format, basically shoot to like shoot it where I don’t have to spend so much time editing it afterwards. So having a properly exposed or if I know it’s going to be like.
Some one part’s going to be super dark and other parts going be super bright. Obviously shoot accordingly for that. Expose for the dark or try not to shoot it in places. I have like a bunch of signed or soaked in the water where everything looks foggy and silty and all that kind of stuff. Or even with the divers with the bubbles, like good communication with the model or the subject saying like, don’t blow a bunch of bubbles cause like that’s going to take forever to edit out or stuff like that.
It just saves a lot of time.
Brett : [00:32:50] And that’s, I guess that goes back to what you were saying about it being kind of military bootcamp style where it’s, it’s really given you this, um, experience to know whether it’s even worth pushing the shutter at that
Andre Musgrove: [00:33:01] Exactly. And then does the deciding, like each time the shutter is pressed is kinda like. Like it’s precious time basically. I know depression is not the same now, and most of the, any pressure with getting a shot I put on myself just because it’s just the way I learned. But I, I don’t, I don’t feel any, I put any pressure on myself.
I just really enjoy it and I know usually what I’m going for. So when I shoot in an office. Don’t worry if I’m shooting enough times and I get the photo I like, I know when I have the photo that I need. Basically I look at like all the details, like, okay, if there is a shark overlapping, the diver’s fin is the bubble is like right in the eye.
If there’s too much soda in the water and the person’s blurry, like to Noah, that basically perfor getting out the water and to shoot until you get that. Almost perfect shot as close as perfect. Give you if you as you want to try at least
Brett : [00:33:58] Yeah. It’s interesting cause it’s a very film kind of way of shooting. It’s, it’s a way of shooting that is, I’ve only got 36 shots in this camera. I’m going to make them all. Kinda count. Whereas I think a lot of these days with a lot of digital photographers, they’re like, I’ll just shoot everything and I’ll fix it all sorted out later.
Um, which doesn’t really, to me, that doesn’t really teach you anything. Like you’re not making any good decisions
Andre Musgrove: [00:34:23] Exactly. Yeah. Or I don’t think, I mean everybody has their own style, but I feel as if it’s a cool challenge to take on too. Like if you could . Improve in each area of whatever you do. I get learning something new every single time. So if you, if you take the, let’s say two minutes longer to try and get this shot that you wanted to, you could save like 20 minutes and having to edit it later, or something like that, or totally up to whatever you’re trying to go for.
So
Brett : [00:34:54] Oh, totally. It’s something that I’ve, I’ve done in my photography, so I’ve, you know, I’m no stranger to Photoshop. I am okay with compositing stuff, but in the last couple of years, I’ve really found. This, I don’t know, like kind of philosophy of trying to get everything right in camera.
And this sort of photography that I do is very different to yours where I’m building sets in swimming pools and, and kind of creating these underwater like worlds. And I’ve had people kind of go, why don’t you just Photoshop it? Like, why don’t you just. You know, create the background in Photoshop and then drop them in.
And I’m like, to be honest, it took me a lot less time to build a whole set than it would have to Photoshop every single
Andre Musgrove: [00:35:36] For real. Yeah, I know what you mean.
Brett : [00:35:39] And there’s that sense of satisfaction as well. We look at the camera and go after you’ve taken that shot, and it’s like, this is, I don’t need to do anything
Andre Musgrove: [00:35:45] Exactly. Yeah, that’s, I think that’s a really cool, for me, I just like a really cool feeling to Holly to be like, people may think like depending on your style, obviously some photos look more Photoshop than others, but for stuff that, certain things that. Alright. Photoshop. The people think of Photoshop because they look so cool or so good or whatever.
I think it’s, I take it more as like a compliment. I think it’s like a compliment because it was done in real life. Basically like natural. I could have seen that without any editing done to it. So the same as they building a site, it’s like your hard work put into the definition of detail in your set so that you don’t have to go back and edit it and it looks super cool and people.
If not people, at least you appreciate it more because you knew the work you put into setting up that set perfectly or perfect, perfect. Goes to whatever you want to do.
Brett : [00:36:38] Yeah. And I think people these days just assume stuff is composited anyway, like they’re conditioned to not think stuff is real. And I think that’s the beautiful thing of what you are doing is when you do your videos, you can’t fake that. I mean, you can fake that, but, but it doesn’t look like that.
Oh, you know, like it’s,
Andre Musgrove: [00:36:58] Thanks.
Brett : [00:36:59] Um, there’s a video that’s been popping up a lot in my Instagram feed. Um, and I, I’m gonna say it’s probably the most viral video, and it’s the video of the girl in the yellow dress playing the piano
Andre Musgrove: [00:37:09] Yeah.
Brett : [00:37:10] that is, um, such a great shot. It’s so simple, and it’s so, um, I don’t know.
It’s so iconic that people have just, I think it just blows people’s minds.
Andre Musgrove: [00:37:19] Yeah,
Brett : [00:37:20] what went into making that.
Andre Musgrove: [00:37:22] Um, that one was one of my most favorite shots. Like one of those shots I’ve had in mind for long time to do. Um, that was shot in Exuma. Bahamas, uh, and up on the water piano statue is from an artist named Jason declares Taylor. He bills underwater statues, underwater sculptures, and has them all over the world.
That one’s called the musician is the one with the mermaid on next to the piano. And I had the concept in mind from long ago when I first went to Exuma when I was younger. This is before. It’s just like when I was still like elementary school or something like that. I went to Exuma with my family, I believe in 2014 and we were like thinking of places to go and I never was able to actually go to the piano, but I always wanted to go there.
And it’s a place, like I always had in mind, Oh, it’d be so cool to pretend to play the piano and do it. Like I would preach to us like what everybody thinks when they actually go there. And so. The opportunity came up where this French TV show, um, R T or station T, T F one, France, I think it’s called. They wanted, they will come into The Bahamas dues, like segments on who live or do unique things or live in unique lifestyle here in The Bahamas.
So they kind of wanted to record like a day in the life of whatever I do. And so I called up my friend’s staff who’s a underwater model and inferior dive instructor, um, to be the model for that shoot for me, for as we went around Exuma um, to shoot basically Exuma as one of the places that I visit pretty often.
Um, for clients or just like personal projects because it’s has so much to offer in such a small area, and they really, really clear water, really shallow everywhere. And so one of the concept was the piano. And so we went there. We didn’t have, we didn’t have any scuba equipment. That one was done all free diving.
Um. On breath hole and in that particular spot where the piano is in our channel, like our ocean channels. So there’s a lot of current pushing through there depending on the tide. So you really have to go there at the right tide or tried to go there at the right tide, which we try to go there at the right tide, but it was still a little bit too early or too late, I can’t remember.
And there was a lot of current. Pushing there. So it really challenged me as a photographer on also kind of safety diver for the underwater models staff. And she was wearing no mask, no fins, wearing a yellow dress under water. So like the least hydrodynamic piece of clothing you could possibly have on, on basically.
Exactly. I love bass. Like a parachute on no water. I to set up that shot basically where I would swim or I would swim her up current, um, in time to like get her breath. I would swim Bach to get into position and as the current would push her back in like over the top of the piano, she would dive down ahead of the piano too.
Grab the seat and like use her knees to force herself on the knee to hold us off in place. And all of that just happening while she is holding her breath. Basically trying to hold it on, not to get blown away from the current and also stay calm and fix her hair fixed address. Um. Fix it here, fix fixed address again, keep doing that.
I as the current blow is it basically, and I’m diving down. Oh, I’m already down there. Basically just shooting different angles, swimming, um, horizontal swimming, current, trying not to get blown away while shooting. And B, we have like a, I don’t remember how long we would be down for. Cause we would be burning a lot of energy.
So maybe each time was probably like 30, 35 seconds basically. Cause we were basically swimming all out at the surface and then having to hold our breath and go down. Um, while like all our muscles are pumped and burning and all that kind of stuff. And we read, we read, we read, did that a few times. Um, and we finally got the shot after maybe like, I think six attempts of doing that.
And it took us about two hours at that point, at that particular spot. And then we got the shot and we were like, well, it’s pretty cool to do video anyway. Um, we have the opportunity to do the video. We’re very ready here. Like we’re good for time for the light, if the lighting and all that kind of stuff.
So we shot a video for it too. And that was basically it. Like the. Um, when the photo, I posted the photo and I was really happy with how the photo turned out with the, um, the colors, like I specifically wanted the yellow drastic contrast or the complimentary colors with the blue and the yellow and the clear water and all that kind of stuff.
And so I was really happy on how it came out and we posted the photo and people really. Like on social media, people really liked it and saying how cool it was and they’ve been there before or they want to go there and all that kind of stuff. And then we posted the video, like the video photo combo of what happened along with like the popular, um, song that sounded like her plane.
She was actually playing the piano. Um, the combination of DOD people really were. All right. Excited to see and excited to share and it, it just blew up after by like it, it got re posted from a number of really big travel pages or for some reason even beauty makeup pages, Rez reposting. I don’t, I don’t understand.
Not one, but it went, it went. Oh. Like it went everywhere at basically. And I think also the, the colors of the contrast of the yellow dress with the blue, like just, if you’re scrolling through Instagram, it’s just like popping colors to see, um, how a lot of people would just stopped. So. It was, it was like, I thought about all of that when I was shooting it.
Like I wanted something to really pop, even if it’s like not even first social media, just like a normal photo. Like I want something that really pops as to call with the colors. And that helped well with the being on social media and it went and went everywhere and it did pretty
Brett : [00:43:23] Oh, yeah, I’ll totally, I, like I say, I see it more than once a day in my feed.
And it is, it is one of those videos and the, the movement you’re doing with that, um, with the camera and the camera movements, kinda like this Dolly kind of tobacco from around her and around the piano, and it just sucks you in straight
away. And I think that the music is like Coldplay or something,
Andre Musgrove: [00:43:44] Yeah, I think it’s clogs and it sounds like a piano.
Brett : [00:43:47] Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s such a great shot. It’s incredible. And I think if I wouldn’t have been impressive if it was just a still photo, I think,
Andre Musgrove: [00:43:54] Yeah. Yeah. I think it really compliments the photo
Brett : [00:44:00] Yeah. And to be honest, now that you’re telling me that there was a lot of current, but you can’t even really tell, she looks pretty happy there. Like she doesn’t seem like she’s fighting it at
Andre Musgrove: [00:44:10] Oh, when you, when you watched the video, I did put the video in reverse just as I got added thing, or for some reason I put it in reverse. I don’t know. I made of. It wouldn’t may have been more steady or smooth that way, did it, but I also know what it caused more. It would have engaged more people who would notice it to be like, it’s in reverse, or it’s like some engagement on Instagram at least.
Um, with it being reversed. But if you look at a dress under here, it’s basically like when on I here, but mainly you’re dressed as horizontal and that’s because it’s getting blown with the current. If there wasn’t any current, everything would just be like. Sitting straight down, kind of in limp. So the current, the current actually helped with that, with that photo.
So I’m happy if you didn’t go
there.
Brett : [00:44:54] now that you say it, I think I just assumed that she’d fluffed a dress up and flicked the hair up and then started playing the piano. But now that you say it, it kind of, yeah, it makes sense that there’s a current coming through
there. And I didn’t even notice that it was backwards.
Andre Musgrove: [00:45:06] Yeah, the bubble people only notice when the bubbles started to calm down. At the end of the ball come down. Jen knows, but I didn’t really care. It didn’t really matter to me. I thought it was, I thought I
was cool.
Brett : [00:45:17] Yeah. And to be honest, I didn’t notice that it wasn’t with, I mean that it was backwards and I’m usually pretty good at noticing that stuff. Um, so it just, it just tells us that, you know, you made the right choice doing it, but now it means I’ve got to go back and look at it. I’ve got to go and check it out again.
So that’s great. Um, do you do much, um, commercial work? I’m assuming you do. What sort of things are you, are you shooting for? Like are there brands or, um, kind of tourism stuff? What are you doing commercially.
Andre Musgrove: [00:45:42] So commercially is more video work. So cinematography work for, I say, actual commercial shows or documentaries or P essays or stuff like that. Usually around, um, some sustainable message is the, when people come here to The Bahamas, they’d talk about. I say the Marine life fair to be sharks. Lobsters are Kong or something like that.
Or, um, if it’s tourism stuff where people like coming to The Bahamas and need to show them Bahamas locked. Also, a lot of cinematography work, um, for the photos. It’s mainly personal stuff, personal as in, um, individual. People who are tourists who come to the country, who want, who found my work, mainly through social media on, they want to do an underwater photo shoot, um, or they want to go, they want to go to this spa.
They might not want a photo shoot. They might want to go to this part that is underwater. And that’s where the dive guide. Stuff come into place for like groups of free divers who are underwater photographers who see, who’ve seen my work and they want to go there. Um, I can guide them. And also as an underwater photographer, I can cater better to other underwater photographers because I know what they would want and what they would need based on the time they need to get there.
The visibility that needs to be the best if they need any equipment or they need like rinse tanks and like all that kind of stuff. Basically. Since I do it, I can cater better to them. And also, yeah, so for the photos, it’s mainly individual people or a couple or maybe like a group of people who want to try on underwater photo students and free diving and want to swim with sharks and stuff like that.
Basically
Brett : [00:47:21] And so with your leading or guiding of other photographers, is that like a package with a like with a boat as well, or do they just kind of add you on to whatever they’re already doing.
Andre Musgrove: [00:47:34] it’s, it’s a boat guide, safety diver, a kind of package going on it. Everything I do is customized to whatever the person or group would need just because everybody has requests. Different almost all the time, or they didn’t want to do like one day and I saw her and they have a group of six people and then they want to do another day and being many with the hammerhead sharks, and they have a group of four people.
And depending on what they want, everything really changes, um, changes based on like, um. What boat to go on or what size group needs this amount of the safety divers are stuff like that. Basically what it is, basically they want, until they get all of the information or the necessary information, I can put together what they would need and when, when it will be available and when they should come and stuff like that.
And it usually goes pretty, pretty smooth on. It’s, it’s usually the really cool people too, cause it’s like it’s usually free divers or a spare fishermen are scuba divers. So ocean people are most of the ocean people or underwater people. I’ve met them pretty cool. So it’s a cool thing
Brett : [00:48:37] and I think it’s really awesome hanging out with people who have similar ideas and similar kind of loves and stuff. And you kind of get, you know, it’s fun to kind of help people create the things that you already know how to
do. Um, and what are your influences? Are you, are there people that you kind of were looking at as you came up through this industry that, that really influenced you.
Andre Musgrove: [00:48:57] Yeah. There were a few photographers, um, creators, uh, filmmakers who I used to just, I really liked how their work look like and not really in any way I wanted to do what they were doing because I really liked certain things. Of what they do. So like I was a big fan of watching the blue pine at series and planet earth series and how they were kind of story tell with the Alamos and make like that animals almost like have personalities and then like the cinematography overate and the colors and all that kind of stuff.
And then, um. For other stuff, like with the photography sense, there are different photographers who would like specialize in like really good lighting, for example, underwater in the ocean, like Alex mustard or Eric Chang. Um, I and all the photographers who shot more people underwater, like Alaina callus for example, my friends, um, Sasha’s mom, um, they shoot together, they got underwater photographer who’s a mother and.
Model who was a daughter combo package. There they are basically on number homage to a good friend of mine. They’ve got something that been doing for years and just just stuff like that. Basically like combining like, okay, this photographer, I really like how they used the lighting, whether it be ambient light or strobe light in the use that you have so much range of colors based on where they shoot.
If it’s like your reef or a rack or something like that, and then somebody else using like really cool. People like, well, people on water and really cool figures, and I complimenting the Marine life or the area on kind of just merging those two, like merging the things that I liked from just to see, um, together basically, even if it’s stuff that didn’t have anything to do it on no order photography.
If you’re like adventure photographer is like, who do more stuff online, like. Two of them who I follow and I really enjoy their work is Travis Burke and Chris Picard. They take some pretty cool, really interesting adventure above water exploration style photos that usually involve people in a nature environment, just as a, the human aspect to it.
And all of that is just like little things that I really enjoyed that I, once I knew, like what I like to see and I. Kind of along with the creative ideas I had in mind to be as unique as I could try to be. Um, that’s basically how I did. I was basically what influenced my style of, I do it basically, it does merge together.
Everything that I like to see and enjoyed seeing and tried to figure out how to do it. And then I had my, my creative swing to it and basically just go from there and then keep developing that and finding new places to go, um, things to shoot and all that kind of stuff.
Brett : [00:51:49] Oh yeah. And I think that is a great way to get your own style. I think a lot of photographers start and they’re like, I want to be so and so. I want to do exactly what they do, but you’re never going to do exactly what they do because you’re not
Andre Musgrove: [00:52:00] exactly. And I feel as if I’d sends too, it’s kind of limiting the creativity that you may have, but if you’re too focused on trying to be like the other person, you’re basically putting your creativity in a box. We are. Creativity could be the one thing that you. But you’re not letting it come out.
Brett : [00:52:19] And we’d been in kind of creative spaces. We talk about having a voice, and I know that when I started in photography, I was like, I don’t know what my voice is. You know, I’m, I’m doing all these things. And I kind of like, you know, I have people that I am influenced by and I do stuff, you know, that that kind of makes me feel good, but it doesn’t what my voice is.
And it wasn’t until I looked back at my work and went, no, no, I do have a voice. Then it’s there. I was just too close to it. I couldn’t see
Andre Musgrove: [00:52:43] Yeah. Good point. I like, I like how you put going.
Brett : [00:52:46] Yeah. Um, and have you got stuff coming up? Is there, is there projects that you’re looking forward to doing, or are you the sort of person who just kind of, um, kind of rolls with what turns up.
Andre Musgrove: [00:52:56] um, so I do have a few projects coming up that have, because of the whole virus situation, I’ve been put on hold a postpone until like an indefinite time. Um. But I think probably everybody, you may be going through that right now. Those are just, those are projects that involve like, like client stuff, other people’s stuff.
Um, I’m looking forward to them or whenever they do happen. Um, but for personal project stuff, um. That also kind of changed because of where I can access or can’t access. Um, so right now being quarantined here in The Bahamas, I still love my photography equipment. Like thank God I brought like the hard drives that I needed to still like do some editing work on and computer work on.
Uh, right now I’m just trying to think of. What concepts can I shoot for the personal stuff that I could still make into a project, despite everything that’s happening right now, basically, cause there aren’t anybody, they aren’t personally allowed to come in or out of The Bahamas. So like there aren’t any tourists basically for shoots like Dottin, if it’s any like campaigns stuff happening, like those companies that either closed or they’re not traveling right now.
So everything is kind of. Really, really slowed down with any in-person, um, work or in person collaborations or anything like that. Everything is basically just digital now or wherever you are. So those are the things I’m trying to focus on. And hopefully whenever all these things clear up, things go back to normal.
And it’s Bach to diving and shooting and filming. Just like I used to be. Well with other people, just like I used to be.
Brett : [00:54:35] Yeah. I kind of, when you keep talking about the, the, the, the Sal boats and the people that you’re there with, I just keep hearing you guys just going out everyday and just creating stuff amongst yourselves. Is that, is that happening or are you just kind of putting the camera down for now?
Andre Musgrove: [00:54:48] No, that’s, that’s happening. We are, we’re focusing on. Like, for example, just yesterday, we were basically shooting this many campaign intro for some of my friends, starting a YouTube channel, and we’re coming up with different creative concept that we can shoot here and take advantage over here. So it’s a blessing and a curse too, like for the whole quantity and shutting down thing, but also gives us a lot of time to try to produce new content and put out new content so that.
When things clear up, like we kind of have things ready to go and things to share and stuff like that. Um, so it’s, it’s, it’s pretty cool. Like we were able to, we could dive like free to, we can go free diving every day if you want to. Um, we can still shoot on no water, like normal, um, and all that stuff. So it’s, it’s a blessing for a.
Dot. And I’m happy for a doc. We can still do all of that.
Brett : [00:55:40] do you feel like you’re, this kind of enforced confinement has, has kind of forced you to be more creative and think about your creativity a bit more cause you’ve got such limited kind of
Andre Musgrove: [00:55:49] Yeah, for sure. For sure. Like I literally was a few days ago when I realize what, when me realize like how serious this thing is getting, where I like meal basically, we’re not going to go back to the normal living probably like. I don’t see it happening until like a month or two months from now. So in my head I was just thinking like, like, yeah, I really like, I have so much creative ideas that I want to do.
And I guess without having the, if you want to put like in quotation, it’s a distraction of like the real life stuff that has put been put on whole kind of lives, leaves a lot of time for the creativity side to come out and. Just kind of take over. So I’m trying to really find ways to express that creativity in everything I do or coming up with and just thinking, I want you to have the time available to do it.
I’m just how fun with it and see where the creativity would take me. Basically.
Brett : [00:56:45] To be honest, I’m Andre, I’m, I’m kind of sitting here in LA and I think what’s going to get me through is picturing you guys out there in The Bahamas into sailboats. Just being creative every day and kind of, you know, living the best life you can in, you know, whatever it is in the times of Corona, you know. That’s totally awesome. Um, thank you so much. This has been really cool. I’ve learnt so much about you and your process and everything and , I think it’s going to be really good for, for people to hear this and to hear that you’re still staying creative, um, in amongst all this kind of craziness that we’ve got going on out there now.
Andre Musgrove: [00:57:19] Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for reaching out. It was cool. A lot of fun. Hope everybody’s staying safe and good benefit from it in some way. While all this crazy stuff is happening, I’m looking forward to get back into the water shoot, just like I’m assuming everybody is
Brett : [00:57:34] Oh yeah. I think we’re all pretty itchy at the moment.
All right, Andrea, thanks so much, and hopefully we’ll talk to you soon.
Andre Musgrove: [00:57:40] no problem, man. Have a good day.
Brett Stanley: [00:57:42] So there you have it spinning quarantine on a sail boat in The Bahamas. Definitely not a bad way to spend your time. I’m sure there’s downsides, but I definitely can’t think of any right now.
Thanks for listening. Everyone. This has been episode four of the underwater podcast, and I just want to let you know about a new podcast that my wife, Jamie Lee has been producing and it’s all about hair and makeup in the film and television industry. If you want to hear awesome interviews with people who work as heads of department in that industry and listen to their stories and their techniques, then check it out. It’s called the last looks podcast and it’s available wherever you get podcasts from.
Check it out. The last looks podcast.
The underwater podcast is presented and produced by me. Brett Stanley and our music is Neo by old boy. If you’d like the podcast, please subscribe and join our Facebook group where you can comment or even suggest future episodes.
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Keep creating everyone. I’ll see you in the water.