Wildlife welcome: Photographer shoots models underwater...
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A fashion shoot where you didn't need a hair or make-up artist on hand to touch up the models every couple of seconds would sound like a dream to most photographers.
But, while Mick Gleissner does not need to worry about smudged eye-liner his shoots raise a whole different set of problems... as they take place four meters underwater.
The German photographer's pictures, which show everything from submerged cycling to rock concerts, have inspired music videos and adverts around the globe and models are lining up to take part in them.
Mick takes his photographs on location in the, thankfully warm, tropical seas off the coast of Cebu, in the Philippines. He also uses deep-water swimming pools on land.
All his models have to pass rigorous safety tests to prove they can hold their breath for up to four minutes at a time.
The 42-year-old, who is originally from Germany but who has lived in the US and now Hong Kong, said the motivation for his work was to do something really different.
He said: 'I have always enjoyed diving and photography and bringing the two together was not difficult, but the results I got were similar to other people photographing marine life and other things already there.
'Then a model friend suggested to me she would love to do a shoot underwater and it took off from there after we got an amazing response for those first pictures.
'We are the only people in the world who do this on such a large scale with so many different sets and models involved as well as all the equipment and crew.
'I get models asking me if they can take part all the time, some of them have the little girl's dream of being a mermaid and others want to act like someone in a James Bond film.
'Safety is always a priority and each model has their own safety diver on hand as well as myself and the rest of the crew.
Mick's favourite shoot was a boxing ring that needed a lot of equipment but got a great reaction.
He said: 'We did have a funny moment when a really big jellyfish swam into the set, the girl we were shooting was pretty freaked out by it.
'But the large jellies are actually the harmless ones, it's the smaller ones which are nasty, so we ended up have the jellyfish in the shots. One of the divers actually kept helping move it back into each photograph.
The biggest issue for Mick is trying to light up the shoot because there is not much equipment around that can be used underwater.
'We have built our own LED displays,' Mick says, 'which give out quite a lot of light but really you can't beat the sun for the real thing.
"That means we can only really go to three or four metres in depth unless we are shooting something really moody.'
