The sun comes out behind me in the water and I am reminded of my fascination with the light in the shallows. I remember paddling on an island beach near Greece many years ago. The shimmering glittering shapes that slipped across the sand. The water barely moved but it made the shapes underneath dance. I wanted to draw it, to photograph it, but could do neither with any satisfactory result. I chose to just watch, until the sun passed again behind cloud. I’m filled with joy each time I notice those same shapes in shallow waters with dancing light, equally hypnotised and grasping at an inability to capture it in any meaningful way.
Remembering the starting point for this blog, my under water drawings, brings me back to diving and the effect of depth on light. Partly my reason to draw was because I didn’t have a camera to take photos. Looking back through pictures I have taken when I have had a camera, I remember how bad I am at taking photos under water and how much the light is stripped from them. How unsatisfying a photograph I take when there is no red in the spectrum – this is not what I see.
