Ladies in Waiting

Ladies in Waiting’ is a Limited Edition collection featuring the official 2020 (2021) Australian Olympic Artistic Swimming Team. It is an intimate collection by ex-Olympic Artistic Swimmer and Fine Art Photographer, Francesca Owen. This shoot was particularly special to Francesca as she captured the series at the pool in which she spent many years of her training; Chandler Aquatic Centre in Brisbane, QLD. This collection is not your typical Synchronised Swimming shoot, instead it explores the antithesis of the sport, offering the audience a different perspective of the Olympic Swimmers themselves; their individual expression and their unscripted movements and relationships with one another. Whilst exploring the opportunity of photographing the Olympic Team Francesca saw this as an opportunity to highlight the weight that these performers had endured in the years postponement of the games; to highlight through her lens and curation the concept of 'waiting' in the underwater domain. It’s not about perfect scores, its about the beauty of imperfections and the spaces in between. The games may be the final stage, though the performers dreams can rise and fall before the curtain opens; thats what I wanted to give a lens to. At times life can be unsynchronised, in some way we are all Ladies in Waiting.