METCALFE LAGOON

Words: Sarah Pratt

People are great. You can do a lot of things with them: eat, sleep, laugh, cry. They definitely serve their purpose. But sometimes they can be very annoying. Sometimes you don’t even want to look at them. And so for the people who have had enough of looking at people, this post is for you. Kasi Metcalfe took a recent dive and captured a ‘what-would-I-see-if-I-was-a-fish’ kind of series. Yes, Kasi has taken her fisheye photography to a very literal level, but the end result is a pretty special and so we thought we would share them with you. If you too find yourself capturing the world through a fisheye lens then send us an email to submissions@spookmag.com

 

WHO: Kasi Metcalfe.
AGE: 27.
FROM: Born in Humpty Doo NT, currently live in Melbourne.
EXPERIENCE: Since I was little I had a tiny plastic camera I won in the MS Readathon, I think I was 7. But I didn’t really get into it until high school with the black and white, I had a wonderful crazy teacher who really encouraged me.
JOB: I’m currently working as a photographer with high speed cameras, our main bread and butter is filming the car crash safety tests, but we do anything that people want to see in slow motion from commercial work, scientific to industrial. I do small freelancing photography jobs on the side when they come up.
WHERE: In my family’s lagoon that I grew up living nearby. I’ve been swimming there since I was little. Its seasonal so it is only really full for a couple of months a year in the wet season. Me and my friends used to spend hours there except they were always worried there were crocodiles. I’ve had many nightmares about swimming there and being eaten by a croc.
TIME: It’s something I’ve been working on for a little while, experimenting with this and seeing what works best and going back to re-shoot until I finally got this series going.
PEOPLE: Just me and my dogs swimming round the swamp.
CAMERA: Plastic Fisheye Lomo in underwater housing with ISO 800 colour film.
WHY: I swim there a lot so I want to show people what I see, it’s kind of creepy and surreal but beautiful place underwater. It’s not protected so we get people throwing rubbish in there and lighting fires when it’s dried up. But the worst is the trail bikes that do doughnuts in there in the dry season and rip all the turf and mud up, it can get quite depressing to go there because they have no respect.
FAVOURITE: I like the reflective ones best, a bit abstract, you get the sense it’s underwater but can’t be sure. But I can’t really choose – I like to think the fisheye makes it look like you’re looking thorough a portal in a submarine. When they’re up on your wall they’re like windows – like a Jacques Cousteau study of the lagoon in your living room.

 

ALSO READ: THE BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN OF CAMBODIA