If Covid-19 won’t let you go to the pool, then you can let the swimming pool concerned you, thanks to manager, writer, and devoted swimmer Lou Stoppard’s brand-new picture book, which explores its longstanding role as a muse to authors, artists, professional photographers, and filmmakers.
Stoppard’s own relationship with pool dates back to her teenage years, when she was a competitive swimmer and would invest most of her evenings and weekends at her local pool. “When I went to university, I stopped swimming completely and I didn’t get back into the swimming pool for years. I started to discover that I ‘d end up being a little afraid of water,” she states.
Above: book style by B.A.M.” I felt distressed in the deep end, and extremely conscious of other types or shadows. I understood I desired to cure that worry, so I started swimming continuously. Lakes, rivers, ponds, pools– I ‘d get in.
Having actually wanted to do a swimming-related project for years, Stoppard already had a collection of photographs which ended up being the starting point for Pools. “You are hard-pressed to find a professional photographer who hasn’t made a pool image, at some point, at a long time. Therefore lots of professional photographers have actually made actually fantastic swimming pool images, popular images, that all of us know and like,” she says.
Aqualillies, from The Swimmers, 2017 © Emma Hartvig” I knew that I desired a genuine mix of photographers– young, old, celebrated, unidentified– and also a mix of styles and genres, from fashion through to documentary. Part of this was to reveal the way that the swimming pool has actually stayed a sexy location for photographers, as years have actually passed. It sounds unfavorable to call it a trope, however in a manner, it is.”
While it would have been simple to organise the book chronologically or by photogapher, Stoppard wanted to curate a reading experience that talked to the myriad manner ins which swimming can make you feel. Rather, it is arranged by style, sweeping from the glamour of the poolside celebration, to the meditative enjoyment of being in the water, to the function it can play in our developmental years.
” In the end, the book is organised around moods of swimming, and the pictures are grouped that way: Meditation, Glamour, Coming of Age, Holiday, Sex, and so on. That way, we could take a look at different ways the swimming pool can be seen– as a background for subplots (pool parties, style, sex) or as a frame of mind, and even a set of angles and lines,” says Stoppard. “Each chapter begins with a quote from a fantastic swimming scene in literature that echoes the mood of the images. It’s a great roaming bibliography; a reading list for individuals to go away and resolve.”
Included photographers consist of Glen Luchford, Stephen Coast, Mert & Marcus, Diana Markosian, Martin Parr, Martine Franck, Alex Webb, Alice Hawkins
Learn More