Dive Into the History of the Swimming Pool in Photography
For the better part of the last century, photographers of all kinds have been drawn toward pools, whether for the way their reflective forms are captured by cameras or their role in social gatherings. The resulting images are the subject of Pools: Lounging, Diving, Floating, Dreaming: Picturing Life at the Swimming Pool ($65, Rizzoli), edited by writer Lou Stoppard.
“I’ve wanted to do this book for years, so I’ve been collecting great pool photographs for a very long time,” Stoppard tells AD. “Part of this was to show the way that the swimming pool has remained a seductive place for photographers as years have passed. It sounds negative to call it a trope, but in a way, it is. Pool pictures litter the history of photography.”
Stoppard herself has a history with pools—she was a competitive swimmer as a teen. “When I went to university, I stopped swimming entirely, and I didn’t get back into the pool for years,” she says. “I started to notice that I’d become slightly fearful of water. I knew I wanted to cure that fear, so I started swimming constantly. Lakes, rivers, ponds, pools—I’d get in. I am something of an obsessive swimmer!”
For the book, Stoppard compiled photographs by a range of photographers—both famous names and lesser-known talent who worked across industries from fashion to documentary—arranged by theme. “It would have been easy to organize the book chronologically or by photographer, but I wanted to do something that really captured the joy of swimming and spoke of the myriad ways water can make you feel,” says Stoppard. “It’s a nice wandering bibliography: a reading list for people to go away and work through.” In essence, it’s the escape we all need right now.
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest