Meet Abbey Blake

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Abbey Blake. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Abbey below.

Abbey, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?

I think it’s important to preface this by saying my confidence and self-esteem is an ever changing journey, but I’ve put a lot of effort into my personal growth and discovering my authentic self to become the woman I am today.

I grew up in a very sheltered and conservative environment, which also meant being taught to be hyper aware of everyone ELSE’s feelings and comfort, rather than following my own intuition. It was frowned upon to trust yourself or your body. I would always relate to the Disney princesses not really even knowing why at the time, because they all knew there was something missing and that they had something, someONE, inside that was aching to be seen and heard. Ariel was my favorite of them all because, come on, let’s face it, who doesn’t want to be a mermaid? I would swim in my neighbor’s pool all summer and pretend I was a mermaid, graceful and free. The water was a place of quiet, safety, and freedom.

After years of trying to fit in with my small town “get married, settled down, have a family” expectations, I found myself questioning everything: who I was, what I was meant to do, what I believed. To quote our favorite Little Mermaid, “I just don’t see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be bad.” I stepped out of my comfort zones and found a magical world of professional mermaid performers and underwater models and for the first time felt free to be honest and express myself without judgement or shame. There were creators of all shapes and sizes collaborating together to make art with one common theme: water.

I guess you could say my self-esteem and confidence comes from the community of underwater professionals and people I have met through that. Before becoming a pro mermaid, I could APPEAR confident (I’m a performer, after all,) but it was all forced and inauthentic. Now, after finding a place in this incredible community of divers, stunt performers, models, and ocean conservationists, I’m able to truly be myself and in turn, encourage others to do the same.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I have had the pleasure of creating with my partner, Justin Lutsky, all over the world and as of a few months ago, we just opened our first ever underwater studio in Southern California! We are so excited to share our love of underwater visuals and art with the world in an even more intimate way. The studio is set up for underwater portraits (think bridal, engagements, senior portraits, family photos) as well as underwater film production with a full underwater recall system and video village.

In between our local film and photography shoots, we travel the world together creating travel and underwater media for resorts, elopements, tourism, etc. One of my most special memories was just last year in the Maldives, where I got to spend hours on the back of our boat watching a Whale Shark (my favorite animal!) swim back and forth all night.

You can follow our adventures
@SubmergeUnderwater
Me: @Everyday.Mermaid
Justin: @JlustkyPhoto

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I highly recommend getting your Freedive certification if you’re interested in water work. It’s the best way to be prepared to perform safely and will teach you a lot about breathing and equalizing techniques.

Find a pod! If you’re wanting to test out the mermaid thing, there are “pods” all around the world and they usually have Facebook groups. If you’re in Southern California, I am the founder of the Orange County Merfolk Pod. We would love to have you!

Join us at one of our underwater model workshops! Justin and I host underwater model and photographer workshops at our studio in California AND at incredible resorts around the world. We are headed to Bali for a sold out underwater model workshop and our next stops will be Maldives, Dubai, and the Red Sea.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

I tend to want to do everything for everyone and that can end up in me falling short in some of those tasks. I’m learning to be more up front and giving myself reasonable expectations to give the client and myself the best experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.submergeunderwater.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/everyday.mermaid, instagram.com/submergeunderwater, instagram.com/jlustkyphoto
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/youreverydaymermaid , https://www.facebook.com/submergeunderwater
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@submergeunderwater , https://www.youtube.com/@Everyday.Mermaid
• Other: https://pillar.io/everydaymermaid

Image Credits

Justin Lutsky, @SubmergeUnderwater @JlustkyPhoto