These Underwater Wedding Photos are Otherworldly Works of Art

Water World

By Giuseppa Nadrowski

With a background in fine arts, photographer Jeffrey Lewis Bennett of metro Detroit-based JLB Wedding Photography has carved out a niche for creating images that are “influenced by design principles, architecture, and good cinematography.”

“I think my favorite shots have some structure to them,” says Bennett, who has been photographing weddings since 2003. “It’s like I’m laying out print in a magazine. I like visual hierarchy. I like incorporating architecture and having the architecture be as big of a star in the photo as the couple.

“I’m trying to tell a story in the confines of the frame,” he says. 

While photography was always a hobby Bennett was passionate about (“I spent a lot of time in the darkroom in college,” he says), “I didn’t think people would pay me money to do it. The first weddings I shot were for friends.” After graduating from college, Bennett worked as a graphic designer and did photography on the side. 

In 2008, a couple hired him to shoot their wedding — a wedding he says prompted him to pursue photography full-time. “They said to me, ‘We want you to come and be creative and not feel like you have to constrain yourself to what the industry might want or what the world expects wedding photography to be.’ That experience changed everything for me. Not long after, I left my day job.”

Couples searching for creative shots are often drawn to Bennett’s artistic approach. He offers all his couples teaser reels for Instagram, along with animated GIFs. “There is a healthy balance of fun and candid as well as moments of real emotion in the work,” he says. “If there’s one thing that really sets me apart, it’s that I think I have a really great understanding of how to use light to make the most dramatic image possible.” 

His incredible talent is what prompted a couple last summer to request that he shoot some of their wedding-day photos underwater. “I had some healthy skepticism,” Bennett says. “But they were serious… I had never done underwater photography at a wedding, so it was a learning experience for me.” 

While the couple had requested that the shots be taken at the lake where they lived, and more specifically, on their wedding day, lake conditions and logistics weren’t ideal. 

They decided to go with Torch Lake in Northern Michigan’s Antrim County, an inland lake known for its Caribbean-blue waters. “We did the underwater photos about a month after their wedding. But they did follow through with getting in their lake on their wedding day,” Bennett says with a laugh. “I hopped on a paddle boat with the groom’s brother, and we went out in the lake in front of a pier with the entire reception and all their guests in the background. They then ran off the pier and into the lake … it was awesome and a real nice way to bookend the coverage of their wedding.”

The results of the underwater photography? “A big success,” Bennett says. “There’s something about the weightlessness that it’s almost like time is still or that you’re floating in space. It looks like a dream instead of reality.”

He adds, “There are also interesting lines of light that you wouldn’t get unless you were underwater.” 

For those considering underwater shots for their wedding, Bennett suggests “the clearest water possible with a bright bottom. Torch Lake offers that in Michigan, but it’s probably easier to do this in the Caribbean.”

While Bennett is based in Michigan, he often travels across the country for weddings and engagement shoots. Some of his favorite projects involve shooting couples on adventures — whether that’s exploring a city like New York or hiking a geological wonder like Horseshoe Bend in Arizona. 

“The task is that the three of us are going to try and see as much as possible in one day, and I’m photographing them along the way,” Bennett says. “I find those jobs to be incredible and perfect.”

Learn more at jlbwedding.com