My works Swimming [in isolation] in this series, explore what it is like to feel lonely and to feel alone. I tapped into these feelings from my personal experience when swimming. Although I have been swimming since I was three, for a very small part of my childhood I’d swim competitively. Since I was little I have always loved to swim and it is something that remains a cherished activity. Yet, when swimming in the pool, around 35 meters or so into a 50 meter lap, especially in an empty pool, I’d experience a strange sense of being alone, completely solitary. The feeling was at times unsettling, at times calming. It was accompanied by the clarity of not being able to get myself anywhere until I move my own arms and legs and as long as I move my arms and legs. As much as I love them, till date water bodies make me feel this way, be it pools, oceans, lakes, seashores. They make me feel small and helpless yet powerful and independent at the same time. This series is shaping up with this sense of vulnerability and strength and the duality between them. I connect this experience to being passionate about something as it makes you push yourself to confront difficult emotions. 
For this project I used by Canon 5D Mark 3 camera and Elinchrome FRX 400 lights. 

Swimming [in isolation]

Isolation, explores the meaning and feelings one attaches to being physically isolated through self portraiture. The experience we are going through can feel lonely, comforting, empowering, anxious, peaceful, unhealthy, constraining, unhappy, addictive, fearful, unpredictable, demotivating, calming, ordinary, resentful, depressing, hopeful, hopeless. For every feeling and every version of it, the work encourages the viewer to know that they are not alone. 

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Rhea Gupte