Pool Light

Rating:
Summary: Artful! Stunning!
Review: Improving on his '96 Waterdance, Schatz provides glorious images made magically possible in that altered dream-world where all things are possible and more beautiful. This book will undoubtably provide us with more Schatz images that continue to re-shape the related worlds of film and advertising.

Rating:
Summary: The pictures in this book are stupendous.
Review: They imagery is sensual, beautiful, amazing. This is a tour de force

Rating:
Summary: Always Marvellous
Review: This is a beautifully made, effortless-seeming collection of underwater fantasies and studies - I loved Water Dance. I'm not sure I'm with him on the makeup. But as playful/sirenesque/naiad photos it is the tops.

Rating:
Summary: A glorious collection of photographs
Review: This is a collection in which to happily drown--Schatz's gravity-free, water-borne figures are once again astounding, varied, and worth revisiting over and over again.

Rating:
Summary: A phenomenal collection of "reveries"
Review: What a great photographer. Howard Schatz lets you forget your surroundings, the time, the place -- it's easy to get lost while you're going through the pages. True art!

Rating:
Summary: Every page of this book is fascinating
Review: Whereas "Water Dance" took off from an experiment, "Pool Light" appears to be the result of a complete mastery of this unique form of photography which combines beautiful bodies with dazzling fluid effects. Every image in this book is a sight to behold, combining the beauty and grace of the human body with the imagination and emotion brought forth by an underwater stage.

Photographer Howard Schatz has advanced beyond "Water Dance" to perfect his art of underwater photography through a more effective use of the pool's characteristics to portray motion, suspend animation, and produce some of the most fantastic images of the human body. Every one of the 120+ photos is worth a long look. The bodies of the dancers, models and swimmers are not all there is to admire, but take a look at how Mr. Schatz uses the surface of the pool as a mirror or as a screen to either reflect or shield portions of the physique. Every aspect of each image seems to be perfectly in place, even air bubbles and ripples of the pool's surface, which add an interesting quality of depth and lighting.

As a nice complement to the images, there are several pages of commentary which describe the artists' (photographer, collaborators and models) inspiration and efforts, as well as some of what goes into making a book like this. For example, it's noted how Mr. Schatz prepares his "liquid studio" to be more tolerable to the subjects, such as using ozonated (not chlorinated) water, and matching the pool's pH balance to that of human tears so that models can keep their eyes open longer. Interesting reading indeed.

"Pool Light" is one of my favorite photography books of all time, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Unearthly
Review: With production values like a Hollywood movie, this book still manages to be intimate, and at the same time, otherworldly and unattainable. More technically accomplished and more luxurious compared to "Water Dance" (although the latter is also a must-have), I can pour over this book time and again, and find another detail or expression to seduce me.