Comparison and Contrast

Those days I was watching some interesting photos that were shoot under the water. I found two very talented and hard working photographer. Their photos are breathtaking beauty. The first one I want to introduce is Zena Hollowa. When people talk about underwater shoot, her photos cannot be ignored. She was born in 1973 and has been working as underwater photographer in London since 1995. The second photographer is Elena Kalis, she is Russian-born photographer, and she just started shoot photos only a few years ago, but she has the ability to be famous in a short time period. In my writting, I will compare and contrast this two amazing underwater photographer's work.

       Zena Hollowa’s 2006 photo album is named “Swan Song”, telling us an fairy tale story in her water world. In her photo, female model are more mature looking. But in this photo she chose a young girl, she is like an angel in her underwater world.(actually, it should look like a swan) Model’s cloth is made of silk probably, and the cloth’s edges are more look like feathers, especially in the water. The white cloth against the black negative space, then we can easily focus on the girl when we justice her photo. The light is from top of head and it’s creating a peace, coziness surroundings as heaven. The line of cloth waved, light, floated in the water wave. In this agravic world, her hair and the white silk cloth are toward to up, in her video of this, the girl moving and waving in the water just looks like a swan swing in the awter. I felt it makes the photo unreality and imagination. The right side(not in this photo, but you can find it in her website) is like some smoky thing in the water and the shape just like the girl in the water. She wants to emphasize this is a fairy tale, is not a real world.

       Here is the Elena Kalis’s photo who always uses her own daughter to be her model. This series photo is also a fairy tale story, Alice In Waterland, at this time her daughter modeled for Alice. In the result, as you can see, it is an attractive, colorful, surrealist world. Unlike Zena Hollowa, Elena’s style is more children’s eyes, and puerility. The color use is bright and colorful that reminds our childhood. I think she actually have more fun to play with her daughter under water than shoot her beautiful photos. Her daughter wears character cloth, so we can recognize that girl is Alice, and also the blond curly long hair. In this photo, her daughter and the camera both up side down, then show us Alice is crouched her knees and floating in the water. This position is also a new born child nature position. The photo represents every alive things come from water. Alice In Waterland describes us a mystery, glorious, and fantasy world.

       I like both of photos, in a limited space underwater can gives designer more creation and thoughts. Both photographer has rich imagination but in different ways.