james cooper.

Water is both a lucid dream and a contradictory nightmare.

Despite our evolution, it’s a place we’re no longer allowed to be. Comprised of it, our very bodies draw us toward it; the water in our cells and the water of the world are like magnets constantly reaching out to each other. Life-sustaining and essential, we can’t live without water but despite our desire we aren’t allowed to live within in either. It beckons us but will just as easily, without thought, drown us. It promises everything yet assures us of nothing.

Viscous and prismatic, we are visually enthralled by its sights and sounds and within its heights and depths we can have an experience as close to flight as anything an unaided human will ever know. Though never far from our minds we know that this buoyancy can shift to prison without warning. Water is false freedom, and we are inevitably ether moored within it forever or expelled out. We may only visit. The moment you let yourself think only of its wonder is when you must immediately remind yourself of its treachery. Or you will die.

I’ve found photos that capture these thoughts. James Cooper’s amazing photos reflect every mood of water: beauty, deceit, abandon, hindrance, effulgence, release, life, and death. They are superb in every sense.