Above Ground, Pools

Brad Walls has a thing about pools.

Inspired by his travels throughout Southeast Asia and within his own home country of Australia, Walls’ journey initially began by capturing the bodies of water simply to document holiday memories. It wasn’t until picking up the Annie Kelly coffee table book Splash: The Art of the Swimming Pool. “As I turned each page of Kelly’s book, a wave of childhood nostalgia washed over me,” recalled Walls.

Paying homage to Kelly, Walls’ chooses to keenly focus on pools’ elements of composition from a bird’s eye view. “I fell in love with the lines, curves and negative space of the pools, which – without alternate perspective from a drone – would have been lost.”

The resulting series, Pools From Above is also an integral part of a much larger project which is aimed at a book release in the not-too-distant future. Looking ahead, once the world finally re-opens, he plans to capture even more world-renowned swimming pools across an array of idyllic locations, including Palm Springs, Mexico and the Mediterranean.

Walls is a featured artist for the Inaugural 2020 Aerial Photography Awards in October and shortlisted for the Drone Photo Awards in Siena, Italy, within the Sport and People categories.