Photographer Brett Stanley captured the beauty and talent of underwater pole dancers as they gracefully danced in the water.

This series was photographed over a few weeks in conjunction with pole dance supplier X-Pole. Stanley taught the dancers how to hold their breath and collaborated on which poses worked best for the photos.

Stanley has been photographing performance artists for the past decade, including pole dancers, trapeze artists and fire breathers. He had long wanted to experiment with photographing such talent under water.

This series began in 2013 when Stanley began collaborating with some of these artists. It was seeming more and more like a reality and everyone was on board.

Stanley says that the dancers make it look easy, as they are in the water, but this was not the case. They had to hold their breath and re-imagine their poses.

Stanley has always had a love for the ocean, so an underwater photo series piqued his interest.

Over the course of two years, Stanley collaborated with many talented women on this project.

Stanley succeeded in capturing their amazing skills underwater. A behind the scenes video can be viewed <a href="http://vimeo.com/116737159" target="_blank">here</a>.