Obsessive experimentation and a love for water led to my first ideas surrounding water as an artistic source. What started to work best for me was having a perspective from outside of the water, looking in and using the surface of a pool as a canvas, utilizing natural effects like the refraction of light to bend reality, and shooting at night so I could really control my light. Through years of experimentation, my technique emerged, and it’s very hard to put in words, because now it’s become second nature. I make it a point not to follow too many photographic rules; it’s like walking a tight rope, and my margin for error is huge. I don’t think my technique is supposed to work, but somehow it always does. After each shoot, I always doubt that I’ll be able to pull it off again.

Author: "My purpose behind the work is to question and find understanding in the craziness, tragedy, vulnerability, beauty and power of mankind." CLR

Christy Lee Rogers is a visual artist from Kailua, Hawaii. Her obsession with water as a medium for breaking the conventions of contemporary photography has led to her work being compared to Baroque painting masters like Caravaggio. Boisterous in color and complexity, Rogers applies her cunning technique to a barrage of bodies submerged in water during the night, and creates her effects using the refraction of light. Through a fragile process of experimentation, she builds elaborate scenes of coalesced colors and entangled bodies that exalt the human character as one of vigor and warmth, while also capturing the beauty and vulnerability of the tragic experience that is the human condition.

Rogers’ works have been exhibited globally from Paris, London, Italy, Mexico City to Shanghai, Sao Paulo, South Africa, Los Angeles and more, and are held in private and public collections throughout the world. She has been featured in International Magazines, including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar Art China, Elle Decoration, Global Times, The Independent, Casa Vogue, Photo Technique, Photo Korea and others. Rogers’ "Reckless Unbound" is currently housed at Longleat House in the UK; the stately home, which is the seat of the Marquesses of Bath and also home to Renaissance gems of the Italian masters, like Titan’s "Rest on the Flight into Egypt." Rogers' art has been featured on several album covers, and her images were selected for the 2013–2014 performance season of the Angers-Nantes Opera in France. She mainly shoots in Hawaii, and currently lives in Nashville, TN, where she also spends her time as a mother, filmmmaker, and musician.

BACK TO GALLERY