An elegant collection of portraits of swimmers at Coney Island across two decades
This collection of 30 photographs by American photographer Peter Kayafas (born 1971) depicts people swimming in the ocean at Coney Island, a location that has long served as a source of inspiration and fascination for artists. Made over the course of many summers and one particular winter during which Kayafas was a member of Coney Island’s legendary Polar Bear Club (the oldest winter bathing club in the United States) in the 1990s and 2000s, the photographs are filled with energy, movement, grace and a surprising intimacy. Using a waterproof camera, hidden just below the ocean’s surface, Kayafas captures candid snapshots of unsuspecting beachgoers. His focus on the swimmers over a period of two decades provides an extended insight into the elemental relationship humans have with water.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Peter Kayafas: Coney Island Waterdance'.
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Thursday, September 9 from 6–7:30 PM EDT, Purple Martin Press, Artbook | D.A.P. and Rizzoli Bookstore invite you to the launch of Peter Kayafas: Coney Island Waterdance. Author and photographer Peter Kayafas will appear in conversation with noted gallerist, author and PhotoWork podcaster Sasha Wolf. Please note that this is an in-person event requiring pre-registration and proof of vaccination (see details below). continue to blog
Featured photographs are reproduced from Coney Island Waterdance, Purple Martin Press’s infectious new collection of photographs made over two decades—summer and winter—at New York City’s quintessential urban beach by American photographer Peter Kayafas. “I am most interested in the way people look when they don’t know they are being photographed,” Kayafas writes. “The activity of being in the water, whether it is breathtakingly cold or welcome relief from summer heat, is both a distraction (good cover for a photographer) and a disinhibition, the combination of which makes for remarkably immediate, energized, and even intimate portraits. I kept my camera hidden underwater while I roamed through the crowds of people splashing, wrestling or embracing; then, at the last moment, I pulled the camera up to my eye to make the photograph. These images are, for me, like passages from some primal, beautiful ballet—the energy, gesture and emotion of the narrative rising and falling with the subjects on the waves.” continue to blog
Published by Purple Martin Press. Text by Peter Kayafas.
An elegant collection of portraits of swimmers at Coney Island across two decades
This collection of 30 photographs by American photographer Peter Kayafas (born 1971) depicts people swimming in the ocean at Coney Island, a location that has long served as a source of inspiration and fascination for artists. Made over the course of many summers and one particular winter during which Kayafas was a member of Coney Island’s legendary Polar Bear Club (the oldest winter bathing club in the United States) in the 1990s and 2000s, the photographs are filled with energy, movement, grace and a surprising intimacy.
Using a waterproof camera, hidden just below the ocean’s surface, Kayafas captures candid snapshots of unsuspecting beachgoers. His focus on the swimmers over a period of two decades provides an extended insight into the elemental relationship humans have with water.
