MICK STETSON: Reveries of Giverny

At Suwa Shrine pond, Koi unfurl dreams and legends In dervish whirls below.

- MICK STETSON

The roots for this series began a few years ago by experimenting with a new technique involving motion.

In this series, the subjects are the denizens of a Shinto shrine pond. There was nothing spectacular about the environment — the kaleidoscope of fall foliage had disappeared, and the greys and browns of winter were creeping in. Then I began watching the koi fish, observing their movements interactions, not only among themselves but also with me. At that moment, I thought of the Impressionists and wondered if I could make images of these koi as if they were being painted and not photographed.

I started thinking of my camera as a painter's brush moving over the canvas, sometimes making broad strokes of light, other times dashes of color, using different shutter speeds with varying apertures in the same image. The challenge I had set for myself was to make these images in-camera without the wizardry of computer technology.

Each time I returned to the pond, I found another exciting aspect to photograph as well as a problem. Resolving the problems became the catalyst for determining the different ways of photographing the koi and the stories I imagined they were telling. - Mick Stetson