Cricket Photography mermaid photos go viral

WINTER GARDEN Sean and Cricket Whitman’s photos have gone viral once before, and now it’s happened again - this time for a series of mermaid-like underwater maternity photos.

It’s a style that Cricket always wanted to try, but she never had the opportunity until a few weeks ago.

She was doing a maternity photoshoot for her sister-in-law, Suzanne, and asked if she would want to try doing underwater photos. Despite being nine-months pregnant, Suzanne agreed to give it a try. 

The two jumped into a pool to do the photos, but the process was much more challenging than expected, Cricket said.

“It was very interesting, but a lot harder than I thought it’d be,” Cricket said. “I think we laughed more than we did anything else.”

As a former dancer, Cricket’s sister-in-law posed in various elegant positions underwater while wearing a maternity gown. But holding poses was anything but easy.

“We both had a hard time staying underwater,” Cricket said.

After the shoot, Cricket posted a photo to her Instagram account, where it caught the eye of a “Good Morning America” producer. It wasn’t long before several national media agencies picked up her photos.

Team behind the lens

Cricket and Sean have been working as photographers for over a decade, but they started out in the business as photography hobbists. Now, it’s their full-time business, and they shoot everything from senior and family portraits to engagement and wedding photoshoots. 

“We have a lot of fun together,” Cricket said.

Their specialty is wedding photography. They’ve shot more than 600 weddings over their course of their careers.

“That’s our bread and butter,” Sean said.

But being a wedding photographer comes with a huge amount of pressure, Sean said, because once the flowers die and cake is eaten, the photos are the remaining mementoes of that day.

“All you have left are the photos,” he said. “It’s a big responsibility; it’s stressful.”

But much of their success over the years has come from the development of their photographic style, Cricket said.

“We’re always trying to do something different - to think outside the box - so (the photos) are a piece of art instead of just a wedding photo,” she said.

As business has grown, Sean has taken on a new role as videographer. It’s a role he’s fallen in love with, but it comes with its challenges, he said.

“I have to be on for an extended period of time, and I have to capture everything,” Sean said. “So it’s more intense (than photography).”

But there is nothing better than seeing a client watch their video for the first time.

“Seeing the reaction of families is very fulfilling,” Sean said.

When she isn’t shooting a wedding, Cricket said one of her favorite types of photography is shooting senior portraits.

“I can be the most creative with senior photography,” she said. “With senior photography, they’re the ones thinking outside the box and getting creative.”

But she brings her creativity to nearly every photoshoot, but she said she’s planning to do several more practice underwater photoshoots before making it available to her clients. But she said she was pleased with her first attempt.

“It turned out way cooler than I thought,” she said. 

Contact Brittany Gaines at [email protected].