As news emerges that the Government might finally be prepared to get to grips with ocean pollution, it appears that at least one diver is able to find beauty in sea-borne plastics and other detritus.
Scottish freediver and photographer Janeanne Gilchrist is holding her first solo exhibition in Perth, depicting “a submerged world of spectral floating objects and mysterious seascapes” in “a juxtaposition between the organic and the invasion of the man-made”.
The show is titled “Above, Below, Beyond” and the manipulated underwater images were captured while Gilchrist dived alone off the Scottish coast in the period after her mother’s death.
Her subjects include “the thoughtlessly discarded cast-offs of fishermen and of man “such as tangled fishing-net, sou’westers and plastic bags, as well as natural subjects such as spawning seaweed, jellyfish and bird-bones.
Gilchrist started scuba-diving in the Egyptian Red Sea 15 years ago, but when she tried diving in Scotland found that the need for drysuits, weighting and scuba processes distracted from observing the underwater scene.
“To freedive is the most amazing sensation,” she says.
“Mastering your fear and hanging silently suspended in the blue/green of the sea, in gin-clear water, in glass-like conditions, is a spiritual experience.”
Of her photographic subject, the Fergusson Arts Award winner says: “Capturing these moments while freediving in challenging conditions in the waters around Scotland isn’t easy. The current is playing with them and with me the entire time – I am trying to capture something that’s never going to be in the same location, same light, same position, ever again.”
The show opened at the Fergusson Gallery,92 Tay Street, Perth on 18 November, and is on until 24 March, entrance free.
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