Prêtes à plonger, Pool Ladies – les femmes nues de la piscine alignées pour la séance photo de Playboy US par Michael Joseph

Description

Photographer: Michael Joseph
Date: 1987

Image size: 50.5 × 40 cm
Mount size: 70 × 50 cm

This striking darkroom photograph forms part of Pool Ladies, a conceptual series created in 1987 for an interview with Michael Joseph for American Playboy television. Conceived specifically for broadcast as well as exhibition, the shoot allowed Joseph an unusual degree of creative freedom, resulting in a body of work that sits between documentary, performance, and poetic experiment.

The image depicts six nude women poised at the edge of a swimming pool, captured in the charged moment just before a race dive. Suspended between anticipation and action, their bodies form a rhythmic sequence — unified yet individual — suggesting both competition and choreography. The tension lies not in movement itself, but in its delay: a collective intake of breath before the plunge.

Other works from the series carry similarly evocative titles, including Swimming in Opposite Directions and False Start, underscoring Joseph’s interest in ambiguity, timing, and visual metaphor. Alongside these dynamic compositions are quieter images of the women at rest — smoking, reclining, pausing between takes — photographs that recall the sensual, sculptural intimacy of Bill Brandt and Lucien Clergue, where the nude becomes both landscape and presence.

Printed traditionally in the darkroom, the photograph possesses a tonal depth and material richness characteristic of late twentieth-century analogue practice. It is very much an artefact of its time — unselfconscious, playful, and quietly provocative — reflecting a period when editorial photography could still move fluidly between art, experimentation, and self-promotion.

The work is sold mounted on a bespoke silver support, bearing the title and the photographer’s signature, reinforcing its status as a finished, exhibition-ready object rather than a mere reproduction.

A compelling example of Michael Joseph’s ability to balance sensuality with structure, and spontaneity with intent, Pool Ladies remains a vivid document of creative freedom, collaboration, and the visual language of the late 1980s.