SWIM SNAPSHOTS by Keetja Allard

"The three ASFOUR bathing suit series of India and her friends was taken in Amagansett pre-season. One of my favorite places because the beaches in the Hamptons unlike the beaches in many places in Southeast Asia or anywhere else these days is pretty empty. Partially it’s because the beach is so wide and long and let’s not forget annoyingly exclusive. Its hard to park anywhere near a beach in the Hamptons without a season pass...but it makes for nice empty beaches.

I’m really into in camera collage because you don't know what you’re going to get exactly. I try to plan it out a little but still at the lab it's Christmas time. Like the water running over the girls necklace. Took me awhile to figure out how the two images met in my camera.

The ones of Beo eating corn and standing naked were taken in Thailand when he was two years old. Probably the most challenging traveling I have ever done. I could probably write a short essay about traveling alone with a baby.

The Lomo ones of the beach looking like a desert were taken after I missed my flight back home from Miami because I was too exhausted and hung over and it was the first time since I got to Miami for Art Basel in the whole week that I had seen the beach and I was feeling very small and heavy lying there amongst the grain of sands at eye ball level that I couldn't bring myself to fight gravity and fly off of the planet let alone leave that patch of sand.

The mossy crotch shot is something I do every time I’m on the beach, it's really juvenile and makes me chuckle.

The cloudy portrait is actually funny enough. Sarah from Colette and I were on a rather exclusive trip to the Turks and Caicos. It was a press junket to observe a huge project that I think got really messy due to some tax issues. As it turned out I was shooting for Vanity Fair but didn't know that until I got to the island and the writer who was there already informed me. We had a great lunch on a deserted beach."

- Keetja Allard

Keetja Allard is one of Nomad's favorite photographers and artists. A true traveler, she is the definition of rad-ness.

August 2012