Virginia Beach man has become one of the most recognized mermaid photographers on the planet

VIRGINIA BEACH

Chris Crumley stood up in the pool, water cascading off the neoprene hat he was wearing to protect a mostly hairless head from the mid-morning sun.

With his nose compressed behind a scuba mask, his voice was nasal and excited.

"God, you guys are just beautiful," he said to a pair of women dressed as mermaids and swimming in a corner of the pool. "The light, the colors … you two are so beautiful."

It's a tough gig, taking pictures of mermaids, but somebody has to do it. And this commercial photographer who does most of his work out of his North End house has no problem being the man behind the lens.

For Crumley, photography didn't start out as a job.

"More of a hobby I immersed myself into," he said.

That's putting it mildly.

When Crumley sold his half of an IT business to his partner, he quickly became bored with retirement and chose to dive deep into the world of taking pictures.

"I designed the house for what I do," he said prior to the mermaid shoot. "There is a large makeup room for the models and a huge studio for inside work. Everything in here is designed to work with photography."

A scuba diver, he also installed a concrete pool in his backyard overlooking the Crystal Lake portion of the Lynnhaven River watershed. He bought only the best equipment for shooting and working his craft – cameras, lenses, lights, computers and waterproof camera housings.

When Crumley realized he was good at what he was doing, the hobby became a way to make money. He shoots commercially for a number of companies.

But some of the work quickly stagnated.

"I was shooting a lot of travel and underwater stuff for several magazines," he said. Then one day during a photo shoot, he got an idea.

He was on a beach in Cozumel, Mexico, with Sherry Smith, an underwater model who said she was likewise bored with the same old thing. They began wondering what they could do differently.

The two talked about the Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah movie "Splash," in which Hannah plays a mermaid reunited with a young man she saves from drowning. Crumley loved the idea of shooting mermaids and set out to get tails designed and made.

That was in the early 2000s, and Crumley now is one of the most recognized mermaid photographers on the planet. (Yes, there are others.) His works have graced several magazines and advertisements, and he has produced a collection of nearly half a million shots. His work is so well-known that members of an Italian ballet company did a shoot in his pool a week ago.

"He's known by probably every professional mermaid in the world," said Chuck Guthrie, owner of Lynnhaven Marine, who was taught photography by Crumley. "He gets invited to every conference and has mentored more mermaid photographers than you could imagine. And he has a deep respect from the girls and for the girls.

"He's forgotten more about shooting mermaids than I’ll ever know. He is one of the best if not the best."

Crumley also leads at least two "mermaid portfolio workshop" seminars a year in Mexico.

"I’m a trainer," he said. "I teach them how to interact with the camera and with each other. When they are underwater there are about 50 different things they need to know and be aware of. It takes time."

Crumley used to do "glamour shots," photographing women who paid him for a personal photo shoot, but he says he can't charge enough to support the undertaking. Mermaid tails are mostly customized from silicone – costing anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to as much as $6,000, and taking a year or two to make.

"It takes several hours to get the pool all set up," he said. "There is a company in California that does the mermaid shoots and charges $750 a session. I can't afford to charge that little."

Nobody gets paid for his mermaid shoots these days. Instead, women such as Nicole Carter and Hales Parcells – the morning's models – get experience and pictures for their portfolios while he gets more shots he can sell to advertisers.

"These two are fantastic," Crumley said, explaining what he needed them to do before they submerged for as long as three minutes. "They make this a lot easier for me."

Lee Tolliver, 757-222-5844, [email protected]

Lee Tolliver, 757-222-5844, [email protected]

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