Fully hosted · Women only · Private heated pool · You choose what's shared
We hear a version of this almost every week, and we want to say something plainly about it.
The women in these photographs are not models. They are teachers, nurses, mothers, business owners. Most of them arrived nervous. Several told us on the drive over that they nearly cancelled. One spent the whole of our introduction video feeling anxious, and booked anyway.
What they have in common isn't confidence. It's that they came.
The women who come are never the ones who were sure.
What a woman told us before she bookeD HER SESSION
"It just looks so out of my league. Everything's so perfect. And I feel so... not like that."
"I trusted Jess completely, and that trust let me enjoy the whole session. She guided me every step of the way."
"I don't think any other kind of photograph could hold the transformation of becoming a mother."
Now she's getting some of her photos framed!
Most women arrive thinking they've booked underwater photographs.
What they leave with is closer to permission — to be looked after, unhurried and unjudged, at a moment in their life that isn't coming round again. A pregnancy. A season of rebuilding after something took more from you than it should have. A body you've only recently stopped fighting.
Everything is handled. The venue, the safety, the creative direction, the fabrics, the fruit, your privacy. You bring yourself, and that's the entire ask.
WE CAN ASSURE YOU
THIS IS Not JUST A photoshoot. IT's an Experience.
Same water.
Different reason for being in it.
IF YOU'RE PREGNANT - MATERNITY
There's a window and it closes. Somewhere between 28 and 35 weeks your body is doing the most extraordinary thing it will ever do, and in a few months it will have stopped.
Most maternity photography asks you to stand in a field in a flowing dress and look serene about it. This doesn't. In the water you're weightless for the first time in months — your baby floating inside you while you float — and what comes back are photographs of a body in the middle of something, rather than posed beside it.
Two reasons women come
Book between 28 and 35 weeks.
I don't think there's any other style of photo that could capture the depths and transformation of the journey to motherhood. - Alaysha
No bump. No occasion. Nobody asked you to.
Being a woman asks a lot of you, and most of it never gets photographed. Whatever shape it's taken for you - holding a family together, or building a business, or the years of a career where you had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously, or making something creative nobody was asking for yet, or being the reliable one everybody leans on, or simply getting yourself through a stretch nobody saw. The years where you came last on a list you didn't write.
Women book these after a burnout, after a divorce, after a year that took more than it gave, after finally making peace with the body they've been carrying. Some come when they've found their strength again, not because they've changed shape, but because they finally had room to choose themselves, and it shows. Some are mothers. Plenty aren't, and never will be, and didn't want to be. Some come for no reason beyond wanting one day that belongs to them.
This is the kind of thing that's easy to keep meaning to do. The only real timing is the water, warm from June to October, and we have three dates left this season. There's no rush from us. But if this is the year, we'd love it to be one of them.
IF YOU'RE NOT - ARTISTIC PORTRAITS
Book WHEN the water's warm.
This was a step in that radical body acceptance — celebrating my body and myself. - Kourtney
What Lands In Our Inbox
Real messages, from real women.
01
02
03
04
05
This IS HOW WE FLOW
Before the camera comes out, we connect, and select your outfit and the props you'd like to use.
Guided the whole way through. Poolside, shallow, floating, or fully submerged
Once the session ends, you can freshen up in the bathroom to get dried off and change.
Within 7 days you'll receive a fully edited gallery where you can make your selections.
Arrive 10 minutes before your session begins to settle, enjoy refreshing lemon water and fruits.
HOW THE PHOTOSHOOT GOES
What the water gives back
THE WORK
You do not need to be a good swimmer.
You do not need to be a good swimmer.
It's the first thing almost every woman says to us. "I'm not a strong swimmer".
Before you talk yourself out of it
You decide what the world sees
Your call, always
Three women asked us about this before booking, so we'll answer it before you have to ask.
Ever. Your gallery is yours alone and never appears anywhere.
Nothing shared
Face out of frame or unidentifiable. Women in healthcare, public service and therapy have all done this and none are recognisable.
Anonymous
First name only, or fully public — if that's what you want.
Named, or public
You choose before your session, and you can change your mind after you've seen the images.
This for you if:
You're pregnant and the standard bump-and-flowy-dress shoot has never once appealed to you
You've already GOT YOUR INSPO FOR the shoot in your head. Bring references — we love them. But the frames that land come out of what happens in the water, not a plan made on dry land.
You're coming back to yourself after burnout, after a hard year, after a long stretch of being someone else's everything
You're hoping we'll edit your body into a different one. Oh, love — this is the whole reason we do this. We'll take out a strap, a shadow, a floatie. But we won't touch you. The body you arrive in is the one we WILL honour.
You've made peace with your body, or you'd like to start
It's probably for you if...
You aren't comfortable being in water at all — talk to us first and we'll tell you honestly whether it's worth it
not
is
"The best person for this is someone who's seen your art and trusts you to make something beautiful. "
You can only do one specific date and nothing else. Weather moves sessions sometimes. If you can't flex across a backup date, wait for a stretch when you can.
You've been pulled toward the water your whole life and you've never had photographs that show that side of you
You want images of yourself that are genuinely BEAUTIFUL, and you've stopped apologising for wanting that
You're a model wanting to add water work with an editorial feel to your growing portfolio
You're booking it as a surprise for someone who hasn't said yes herself. This only works if she chose it
WOMEN IN WATER
Let it all slip away
Last summer Jess spent twelve hours photographing women in nature. Long day, super hot, a lot of moving parts. Partway through, the shoot called for women to walk into the water.
The moment she touched the water, her whole body changed. Stress shifted into something else entirely, in about five seconds. Afterwards Jess asked whether she'd noticed it happen. She hadn't. Almost nobody does.
We've now watched this enough times that we stopped calling it a coincidence and built a day around it.
Something goes quiet when a woman gets into water and stops being looked at.
She stops holding her stomach. She stops arranging her face. She starts moving the way she wants to move rather than the way she thinks she ought to look — and that, far more than the light or the lens, is what makes these photographs what they are.
So this isn't really a photography business. It's an hour where nothing is asked of you, and a camera that happens to be there for it.
We think most women have gone a very long time without that.
We should also admit we built it for ourselves first. Jess spends her working life photographing women in other people's oceans, Tahiti, Spain, places that take a flight and a week and money that isn't always there. There's a version of a life where you simply go when the water calls. Most of us aren't living it. There are children and animals and jobs and the plain arithmetic of it, and none of that is going anywhere.
But the thing you're chasing on that flight isn't really the ocean. It's a few hours of being nowhere, reachable by nobody, with nothing expected of you. One woman told us what she wanted from her session before she'd even booked it: no one, nowhere, no place.
You don't need a passport for that. You need warm water, someone else making every decision, and an afternoon no one can reach you in.
Someone described these sessions back to us better than we ever have: it's teleporting. The body doesn't seem to know the difference between salt water in Richmond and salt water in Tahiti. It just lets go.
That's the part we'd want you to take from this even if you never book. There are feelings available to you that you've filed under someday, and most of them are closer and cheaper than a flight. Your whole life does not have to change first.
So we stopped waiting for the ocean and made one, twenty-five minutes outside Ottawa. Then women started asking whether they could come too.
x Jess & Liz
The pool is warm from May to October.
And then it isn't. That's the only deadline here, and it isn't one we made up.
THIS SEASON
MONDAY
(MID TO END TBD)
(MID TO END TBD)
Not this year? Join the waitlist below and we'll tell you first when 2027 opens.
Join The Waitlist
Add your first name and email address below to join our waitlist. You'll be the first to learn about new dates and it's also a space to learn more about these experiences.
"I found myself expressing parts of myself that had never truly been given room to exist before."
The moment I arrived, I was struck by the breathtaking setting. But even more memorable was the warmth of Jess and Liz. Their presence immediately put me at ease, replacing any nervousness with excitement and a sense of childlike curiosity about what we might create together beneath the water's surface.
Somehow, Jess has captured both the woman I am today and the wonder-filled little girl who still lives within me. The images feel timeless and simultaneously powerful, ethereal, sensual, and innocent.
This experience has given me so much more than beautiful photographs. It reminded me what it feels like to be fully alive, beautifully feminine, playful, and completely free.
maternity
JASMINE
"I highly recommend this to any expectant mom looking for something truly unique and unforgettable."
The entire shoot was unlike anything I've ever done. Both the photographer and host were so dedicated, attentive, and genuinely passionate about creating a beautiful experience — they made me feel comfortable and confident in the water.
The final photos completely exceeded my expectations. They're absolutely stunning, and they perfectly capture such a special time in my life.
NATALIE
"I don't think there's any other style of photo that could really capture the depths and transformation of the journey to motherhood."
From being submerged in water all around me to feeling my baby inside, who is also swimming within my womb — the connection feels surreal.
As someone that feels most at home in the water, it's been difficult to find photographers in this region that truly dedicate themselves to the underwater photography craft. Working with Jess and Liz has been a dream come true for me.
I will cherish these photos for life. I'm even looking to print and frame them and immortalize this body, this transformation, and this journey.
ALAYSHA
WHAT WOMEN ARE SAYING