By putting together this photo series, Casteel hopes to raise awareness about conservation issues.Ĭasteel still volunteers at animal shelters and teaches courses on how to take better animal adoption photos. Up next is a photo series focusing on underwater creatures, such as California sea lions and Alaska salmon. He hopes to release the photos in a book in 2015. The children ranged from 4 to 13 months old. He recently spent four months photographing 750 babies underwater. Most are from animal shelters.Īfter puppies, Casteel moved on to babies. “Underwater Puppies,” released in September, has photos of 72 pups. His goal for this book was to “generate awareness of pet water safety,” he said. He held a national casting call and spent months teaching 1,500-plus puppies in 14 U.S. “So that idea is on hold for now.”Ĭasteel decided instead to focus on puppies, ages 6 weeks to 6 months. “As it turns out, cats don’t have the same relationship with water as dogs do,” Casteel said. Then came the time to think of a sequel to “Underwater Dogs.” The result of that deal was his New York Times best-seller “Underwater Dogs,” which he completed in 60 days, photographing more than 300 dogs in the U.S. He wears a wetsuit and holds his breath, he said.Īfter his images gained popularity, Casteel got a book deal with Little, Brown and Co. Today, Casteel’s underwater photography equipment is valued at thousands of dollars.Ĭasteel does not use scuba diving equipment on underwater photo shoots. Trial and error was – and still is – his method of shooting photos, he said. Literary agents, publishers and media outlets called him day and night.īesides two introductory photography courses while at Chapman, Casteel has had no formal photography training. In 24 hours, more than 100 million people had seen his underwater dog photos, Casteel said. Social media outlets and blogs shared his pictures with their followers. It was 2012 that Casteel’s photos went viral. Everything has been different for me since that day.”Ĭasteel also has a tattoo on his arm of Nala, a poodle mix that he adopted from an Orange County animal shelter in 2007.
“Some people find it odd that I have someone else’s dog on my arm,” he said. It reminds him to whom he owes his success, he said. “I just put my camera in and hoped that it worked out.”Ĭasteel pays his respect to the defiant dog that didn’t want to get out of the pool with a tattoo of Buster on his left arm.
“I then began exploring the idea of dogs underwater,” he said.
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