Solo swimmer – cyanotype from Pool Ladies photo-shoot by Michael Joseph

Solo Swimmer Surrounded by Ferns – Pool Ladies Series

UNIQUE CYANOTYPE FROM AN ORIGINAL NEGATIVE BY MICHAEL JOSEPH

Original photograph: London, 1987

Hand-printed in the Dordogne by Justine Joseph, June 2026

Image: 25 × 19 cm
Presented in an elegant off-white conservation mount.

Created from one of Michael Joseph’s original negatives from his celebrated Pool Ladies series, this unique cyanotype transforms a solitary swimmer into an almost dreamlike apparition.

Deep Prussian blues envelop the figure in an aquatic light, while delicate fern impressions seem to float around her, as though vegetation and water had merged into a single landscape. The cyanotype process allows sunlight, chemistry and chance to interact with the original negative, creating an image in which photography, nature and abstraction come together.

The plants used during exposure are not merely decorative: they become a second form of light-drawing, leaving their delicate silhouettes on the sensitised paper and transforming this swimming-pool scene into an almost timeless composition.

As with every cyanotype in this collection, each print is entirely unique. Variations in tone and texture, the botanical impressions and the natural unpredictability of the process make exact reproduction impossible.

This work brings together Michael Joseph’s photographic vision and the contemporary hand-printing of Justine Joseph, who revisits the family archive using one of photography’s oldest processes, here enriched by the delicate addition of natural botanical elements.

An original piece for collectors of alternative photographic processes, botanical art and contemporary photography.

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