everything you're told in photography school not to do—shoot in the middle of the day when the sun
is very strong, or shoot against the sun. I did all these things as a way to experiment and have fun.
MARC: And that was then even enhanced by the "accident."
KARINE: The colors were almost supernatural. I thought it was amazing. They were actually reinforc-
ing what I was trying to capture, the theatricality of the place. I had never seen pictures like that, with
that color for that subject matter. Many photographers have photographed pools but always with a
social documentary aspect, or as portraits of people, or of just the pool itself. So, I decided to do a whole
series. I initially focused on public pools, which are a part of our everyday life during summer vaca-
tions in Europe. Public pools are a big thing there.
MARC: Did you like pools as a kid?
KARINE: Yes! I have a lot of memories around pools and lakes. These images began as a way to connect
with my childhood.
MARC: Were they good memories?
KARINE: Yes. But my first memory of the pool is actually a scary memory.
MARC: What was that?
KARINE: I was very young and didn't really know how to swim yet. But my dad pushed me into the
deep pool, the one for the adults, not the kids. I have this image of falling away from my dad's arms
into that water, and then he jumped in with me. That was his way of teaching me to swim. So that was
scary. But I guess it didn't scare me enough to stay away from the water's edge. And here's another
memory from where I was six or seven, we were at the pool with school and I started to go under, and
I started to do rolls underwater, and I got so dizzy that I couldn't stop, and I was losing my breath yet
I still felt almost comfortable. I think I was getting high from the lack of oxygen. And this motion—this
swirling underwater—it felt so good.
MARC: My own memories of pools seem to be more of dread, really. Pools brought out my insecurities.
The water was always cold.
KARINE: Later on in this project, I also explored the more troubled waters.
MARC: How did that happen?
KARINE: I took a break from the pool project in 2004 or 2005 to focus on another project. But when the
recession hit the U.S., I decided to photograph pools again after reading and hearing about all these
foreclosures in California.
MARC: Pools as symbols for the financial bubble?
KARINE: Exactly. I thought that would be interesting to document. But then, after I photographed
the the first pools in California, I got completely diverted from that original idea, and somehow I was
pulled into this more poetic, surreal approach. So I never ended up going around California photo-
graphing more of these desperate pools.
MARC: The later photos are very abstract, almost impressionistic. They look like Monet paintings.
KARINE: Usually people see more David Hockney.
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