The magazine of the photo-essay
Jan 2018 back issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
by Ulrike Crespo
The Mysterious Beauty of the Underwater World
Life underwater follows its own optical laws, governed by a different
‘doctrine of the visible’. The light diminishes with increasing depth, and the
eye is no longer able to neatly construct what it sees, instead opening wide
and becoming more receptive.
Webs, membranes, gossamer tissues made up of thousands of
luminescent filigree fingers: the eye of the camera ventures into these
undulating forests of algae and seaweed as if in possession of a remote
motion detection organ like that of a fish. In Ulrike Crespo’s new book of
photographs, she brings together in a unique way the two levels of
perception on which her photographs seem to operate. The first is the
visual, optical level, based on a certain mental distance. And the second level that these images bring into play is a sense
that undermines mere superficial appearances. This sense is not directed outward, but rather inward, or – from the
point of view of the picture – toward the fluid abyss lurking below the surface. The billowing green flora that overflows
from the picture frame inundates our gaze, jolts it out of its distanced composure and makes the visual coordinates falter.
