Ophelia

Polaroid Emulsion Lift of degraded digital underwater photograph. An exploration of Shakespeare’s Ophelia, made in response to studying previous artistic interpretations (such as the paintings of Millais and Waterhouse) against the text. Combining underwater digital photography with alternative printing methods, this series studies the destruction and turmoil that lies beneath the romanticism and serenity suggested in traditional representations of her fate, both in image and process. After creating these underwater photographs I repeatedly printed and re-photographed them to simultaneously intensify and degrade the images. Whilst the title image is a composite of two photographs, the remainder are all single full frame images. In the final stage I used out-of-date Polaroid film to make water-based emulsion lifts onto textured watercolour paper; the destructive yet delicate nature of the process continuing the themes of the subject matter.