Mark Mawson

Mark Mawson is a contemporary, London-based photographer who specialises in underwater fashion, beauty and product photography. He has 25 years of experience in producing creative and inspiring images, one of which being his colourful liquid video called 'Aqueous' that was projected onto the walls of Buckingham Palace during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert.

Image Analysis

This image is a part of Mawson's 'Underwater' portfolio. The shot is taken around mid-day at the bottom of a concrete swimming pool, the harsh light from the sun creates the light patterns on the sides and bottom of the pool. Mawson would have had to use a relatively fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the air bubble and the model before he floats to the surface. The model appears to be running towards the camera with a strong desire to reach it, emphasised by squinted eyes and hand reaching forward towards the camera. Personally, I think this links to my project as it could depict the fears and dangers of water. The danger of drowning in water is very real and is a common fear amongst human kind. It is shown in this image through the strained expression on the model's face as if he has held his breath and is desperate for a gasp of air. During a life threatening situation the mind almost goes into lock-down and automatically goes for the most obvious option, usually where help would most likely be. In a situation where no one else is present, this option would be to swim to the surface. However, like in the image, the model is running to the nearest help, the camera(man). This grabs the attention of the viewer because the gaze and the reach of the model makes the viewer feel as if they cannot look away.

My Response

For my response to Mark Mawson, from a conceptual point of view, my aim was to create the idea of struggle. As I analysed in the image in the swimming pool above, Mawson tried to show a strained expression on the model's face as if he has held his breath and is desperate for a gasp of air; I wanted to create the sense of desperation in my response. I created these images using a fish tank and two tables (as a support). The camera was positioned underneath the tank, looking up through the bottom at the model who would submerge their head into the water. In the first image, the screwed up and strained expression around the model's eyes shows that he is struggling and the air bubble shows that he is underwater, much like Mawson's image. In the second image, the bag over the model's head shows evident restriction, desperation and lack of air accessible to the model. From more of a technical point of view, the swimming pool image I analysed had a very desaturated and grainy look to it which I wanted to create in my response. I achieved this by taking the image as normal and then using Adobe Lightroom to decrease the saturation and increasing the clarity considerably.