These are words from my favorite childhood song.
It means the ocean is wide, the ocean is huge.
My name is Elena Shimoda.
I am an underwater photographer.
I find a lot of meaning and purpose
being underwater portrait photographer
because it represents all the things
that I love and I'm passionate about.
My family, friends, traveling, designing, scuba diving,
and photography.
My father was also a huge driving force
for the way I've directed my profession
because he loved to give back to the community.
I'm happiest when I'm helping people.
I've been taking underwater portraits since 2008
and started working with cancer survivors in 2013.
I work with a lot of people who need a healing transformation.
We all have the same fears, same self-doubt, the same worries.
We all want to feel loved and safe and whole.
But cancer survivors and others with health problems,
they have worries and fears that are sometimes
difficult to express.
Sometimes we need to develop a new relationship with our body
to feel happy in our skin again.
Sometimes we no longer think of ourselves as beautiful
or we are angry at our body.
My work helps people heal emotional scars
and have the kind of transformational experience
that being underwater provides.
I love the smiles on my clients' faces
when they see the final images.
Cancer takes a lot away from a person.
It changes how you look and sometimes
how you feel about yourself.
In my case, I lost my breasts and I lost all of my hair.
So sometimes just a simple look at myself in the mirror
can be emotional because I don't see the old me,
but instead the face and body of a woman
who battled breast cancer.
Water really allows you to feel free and be yourself.
I think it was almost easier for me to be underwater
because I didn't feel self-conscious thinking people
were watching me, but instead it was more
of a private self-discovering experience.
I felt beautiful again and I felt like a model.
And it really boosted my self-confidence
and reminded me that it's OK to love myself again
after everything the cancer took away from me.
Everyone deserved to feel free, joyful, confident,
beautiful, safe.
Water is so healing.
I want everyone to feel that magic from being one with the water.
