Mother

Mother reimagines the Madonna through underwater analog photography. Shot on a reclaimed Nikonos II , it embraces corrosion and chance as metaphors for motherhood: fluid, imperfect, protective and vast.

Analog film, underwater series

Mother series reimagines the archetypes of the Madonna and motherhood across art history through an underwater, analog lens. Shot on a reclaimed Nikonos II camera, the series embraces error, chance, and the ocean as collaborators, turning traces of ocean water and distortion into metaphors for imperfection, loss, and resilience. Working with my own daughter underwater, I want to offer a natural viewpoint on motherhood as a fluid state of becoming, where care, surrender, and transformation coexist. The water functions as both medium and metaphor for the maternal: protective yet consuming, intimate yet vast. Mother resists the traditional, often idealised gaze of motherhood and ocean imagery, proposing instead a feminine perspective grounded in empathy, presence, and the quiet strength found in everyday acts of care.

These images explore the emotional landscape of mothering in all its complexity: the heartbreak, the surrender, the joy, and the moments of clarity that arrive unexpectedly. It is not a portrayal of idealised motherhood but an examination of the messy, intimate, and transformative process of becoming, and unbecoming, through care. At its core, Mother is an inward journey. A quiet, introspective passage into self-discovery. The landscapes in these images reflect that inner world: strange, disorienting, and haunting, yet also sacred, enchanted, and alive with memory, instinct, and myth.

Shot with a broken Nikonos II, a camera once used for war reporting and colonial underwater exploration, the series also serves as an act of reclamation. By embracing the flaws, leaks, and accidental distortions of the medium, and by allowing the ocean itself to leave its mark, I reframe how we relate to nature, the body, objects, and the stories we’ve inherited.