Chuck Bradley’s “Life Aquatic”-Commercial Work That Became Fine Art
© Chuck Bradley
A little while back you might remember me posting about the fabulous still life work of Chuck Bradley and in particular his Life Aquatic series. Well, what started as a commercial job has now developed into an on going fine art project which is starting to attract some international interest from assorted art buyers and style makers.. Here’s what Chuck had to say about it.
“My Life Aquatic series came about quite by accident late last year when I landed a commercial shoot for a major client who needed a duck and duckling swimming in a tank. They wanted them shot so they could swim across a web page. To execute the shots I had a large perspex tank built for this purpose.
After a long day and a lot of quacking, it occurred to me that the shots of the ducks were very graceful and poetic in their movements so once the commercial part of the shoot was over I decided to do a quick re-light, drop a black back ground behind the set and shoot the adult duck, just being a duck. The images captured showed the grace an beauty of the animal, above an below the waterline, a scene most never get to see. From this start I began looking for other creatures that would be as playful and graceful as the duck.
Living on an Island in the middle of Pittwater, it’s my daily “tinny” commute to the mainland that finally brought about the inspiration for the creatures that now make up the later images in the series.
The reason I love this new series is that to me “It’s about the subject, not the post production”. I guess I’m striving to open up a world that no-one ever sees. “It’s organic. You find your subject, you light it, it is what it is – minimal retouching. It’s nice to escape overworked images and the trickery that’s so prevalent in this CGI world.”
