My series Over/Under came about unintentionally at a time when I was consumed with “making art” of my children in the Sally Mann and Larry Towell genre, just like everyone around me (hint: that should have been my first clue. “Trying to create art” is a dead giveaway that I was doing too much thinking and not enough letting art just happen). But in that trying to create art phase, I was experimenting with blurs, flares and imperfection using my DSLR, so that when completely by accident I actually did stumble upon my own way of letting art just happen in camera, I had years of practice with failure and unexpected results under my belt.
I was struggling personally, as many stay-at-home parents do, with isolation, feelings of not being good enough and numbing myself with constant scrolling of other people’s lives. The whole comparison trap had me not paying any attention to life and beauty that was actually going on right in front of my eyes. When I was in the pool, it was different. There were no screens, or like buttons. Just water that washed away and soothed the frayed edges of my mind. There was a little whisper that told me to use a camera to capture what I was feeling in the pool, so I bought an inexpensive underwater point & shoot camera, and just started playing. Shooting in auto, never in my mind did it ever occur to me that I would create anything meaningful.
I just wanted to see what would happen, without an agenda. No pressure to create art, impress anyone, make money or gain followers. Just playing.
Ironically, it was when I stopped trying to create art, that something beyond myself started coming through. But it took me awhile (as in years) to realize that it was anything more than a fluke. Every so often, if my head was in the right state of mind – open to whatever happens, and without expectations or a plan – that these images would pop up when I loaded the cards onto my computer later that night. There was never any rhyme or reason them.
The pictures before, and the pictures after always looked like a “normal” photo, but in that millisecond between normal, something magical would happen. When I would be scrolling through the camera roll in Lightroom after the fact, I was stunned to see what this little camera of mine had done with what had appeared to me to be a mundane backyard swimming pool: slow shutter, crazy and unpredictable white balance, bubbles, reflections, light traveling through water at a haphazard angle. I didn’t need a filter or photoshop actions to alter anything. The reality of what my camera was capturing had all of that covered. In all sense of the words, I am truly a conduit when I am in the pool or the lake. The water clears all of the energy and intentions that usually clouds my brain and lets something else unexplainable come through. I just have to show up and be willing to accept whatever is given to me.
For me, that gear limitation is my sweet spot. Without the limits of my camera, I wouldn’t be creating what I am. And the theme of limitations isn’t just the camera I am using. Living in Canada, my window of opportunity to shoot in my backyard swimming pool is short. June, July and August. By Labour Day, the pool is in the shade most of the day and the cool evenings keep the water too cold to swim. All that I can do is show up when I am able, camera in hand, day after day for 3 months of the year, and feel the rush of adrenaline with not knowing what is going to happen. Each day when I load the SD cards onto my computer it is like Christmas Eve. I get that feeing when I am shooting too. It is what drives me and gives me purpose. Uncertainty is power.
It took a few years of creating like this before I realized I had a body of work. That the images gathered together had meaning. The pool is one place where my kids are still willing to let me photograph them on a regular basis, and this summer, my 11 year old daughter started talking photos with me, and she is just as enamoured with the magic of the uncertainty shooting like this as I am.
It is winter now, so I am done shooting in the water for this year. I hope to continue next summer, but only time will tell. I am taking it summer by summer and letting my intuition lead. For now, I will start the editing process of going through everything I shot over the summer months. I will spend the winter sitting with the images and see where they lead me.