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Pool Light

"In Schatz' first underwater book, WaterDance, he brought his remarkable eye to bear on the challenge of energizing the human body in an essentially languid environment. In Pool Light, he plumbs the depths not only of water, but of emotion, feeling, and eroticism.

"There is something uncanny about the photograph though at first you can't be sure what it is. Lithe and athletic, exquisitely real, the body seems nevertheless like something seen in a dream, weightless and rising. A provocateur of yearning. Beads of moisture cling to her skin. Could anyone so pale and perfect perspire? The drops glow, like a constellation of small, bright stars. Then you realize what it is that's different: the 'drops' are 'bubbles'; the woman is underwater. She is in a dreamscape, an object of desire, out of reach, as elusive as she is erotic. Aphrodite was born out of the sea. Howard Schatz has taken her back home."
Owen Edwards, from introduction.


REVIEWS: Pool Light

-"Gorgeous women. Mr. Schatz throws them into the deep end, sometimes clothed, usually not, sometimes posed alluringly... sometimes engaged in mysterious activities."-

+ Williams Grimes, The New York Times ++
 
-"The culmination of a series of pictures... manipulating lighting and angles so that they appear to either reflect from the surface of the water or somehow transcend it to become floating objects in space."-

+ Eric Wilson, Women's Wear Daily ++
 
-"Schatz's watery visions take us out of our daily routine -- and put us in touch with another, more timeless reality."-

+ San Francisco Examiner ++
 
-"At once lyrical and unsettling, Schatz' portraits seduce the eye with their easy weightlessness."-

+ Anna Bronowski, Black & White Magazine (Australia) ++

Hardcover, 11" x 14", 256 pp,
132 photographs, most in color
Pub. Date: Fall 1998
Publisher: Graphis Press, New York & Zurich