Michele Brenton – Five Photographs

We liked Michele Brenton’s photographs because, like Katie Hale’s poem Siren’s Song, they explored the idea of a ‘mermaid’s- eye view’,  whereas traditional accounts often present only a ‘sailor’s-eye view’ of the seductive mermaid. Michele writes,

“When I take a photograph I am trying to capture every moment and view I have experienced with that space over an extended period of time.  It could be seen as the diametric opposite of cubism as I attempt to concentrate as much as I can into one simple image.  This series of images was taken with a waterproof camera, one is completely underwater, four were taken as I trod water after swimming some distance out from the shore and one was taken from a rocky outcrop at sea which I reached by swimming and climbing so I could take the picture looking down at the boundaries between rock, dry weed, wet weed and open sea.  All are places intimately known to me and I hoped that the images would give a sense of being surrounded by water and allow me to share the sensual essences which collected make up each individual image.  I felt a spirituality of connection to these places and in my humble way I tried to capture the soul of them with my camera and eye and heart.

“Spartia at Dusk is a photograph taken from the sea off Spartia beach on Kefalonia in the Ionian Sea where I lived for three years.”

Michele’s beautiful photograph Spartia at Dusk can be seen in our anthology, and will also be exhibited at Deptford’s Undercurrents Gallery throughout October. Meanwhile, here are five more of her photographs, and a poem A life on the ocean’s wave!

Michele Brenton – Mermaid’s Eye View

Michele Brenton – Untitled

Michele Brenton – Mermaid’s Eye View

Michele Brenton – Underwater

Michele Brenton – Underwater

 Michele Brenton self-identified as a writer before she was five & now past fifty realises self-identification is a complex, never-ending journey of discovery and surprises.  She does not like to imagine what her life would be like without the internet and the people who live in her computer. She hangs out on Twitter at http://twitter.com/banana_the_poet

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