Alex Sher is an award-winning American underwater fine art photographer whose admiration of feminine sensuality heralded him to worldwide acclaim.
“Water is powerful and possessive. It cautiously guards its dark abyss against air and light. Whenever any of the two sneak in, the water mercilessly devours them. Yet, water’s power gives way to its majesty, releasing the elements it once held captive. When a weightless beauty wrapped in shimmering bubbles shines before my lens, the camera takes pictures on its own. I am just holding my breath,” – Alex Sher says.
The underwater world takes today’s art world by storm. Countless photographs of marine life and ethereal human figures firmly settled on the pages of magazines and gallery walls. Just when it appears that every imaginable aquatic wonder is captured and shared, Alex Sher unveils something that defies the very notion of traditional photography.
This isn’t a debut of a novice photographer. Sher’s underwater works have graced the halls of major museums in Europe and America since 2016. They have adorned the walls of renowned institutions in London, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and even made their way to the prominent Louvre in Paris. However, it was with his classic underwater photography.
What you see now is closer to abstract painting than it is to photography. It is hard to believe that these images are real objects captured by an underwater camera. And yet, they are. Before you are photographs of reflections on the water’s surface, taken from beneath the water. The underwater images captured by Alex Sher with the submerged camera from below offer us a fresh and unique perspective.
We aim to showcase in this publication Sher’s journey from traditional underwater figurative photography to the realm of pure abstraction created by reflections. We have chosen early works from the “Underwater Reflections” series, and for the first time, we publish them alongside to the source photographs showing both, the model and her reflection. We also include comments by Alex Sher describing his creative process.
Alex Sher explains: “The first work in the “Underwater Reflections” series was the “Surprise.” I was not impressed with the original composition and was about to archive the photograph when I noticed the reflection of the model in the surface. The brightly and whimsically distorted reflection reminded me of Salvador Dali’s paintings. I cropped the reflection and left it on my computer screen overnight.
After each underwater photo session, I am left with a couple of thousands unused shots. I go back to them sometimes – to make sure nothing was overlooked. It was during one such review that I stumbled upon a resemblance of Gustav Klimt’s masterpieces, woven on the water surface’s canvas – courtesy of Her Majesty Nature. And so, the second photograph in the series, the “Private Pool,” was born.
“Salsa” emerged from the depths of the pool, bursting into my frame. All I had to do was to remove the superfluous material.
Inspired with a new perspective, I went to the bottom of the pool, capturing models’ reflections. Red, the rarest color underwater and my favorite backdrop color provided me with a fusion of water and fiery hues. This paved the way for the creation of “Spark.”
The “Underwater Reflections” series now consists of 15 pieces, which have been displayed at prestigious art exhibitions across America since 2021 and continue to spark growing interest from collectors.
