Mermaids by Michael Dweck 
Essays by Christopher Sweet

Published by Ditch Plains Press, New York
Clothbound hardcover with dust jacket: 25.4 x 33 cm (10 x 13 in.) 160 pages, 16 5-color plates, 65 tri-tone plates
First edition

The book and exhibition feature a dazzling array of photographs in which the photographer explores the theme of the female nude submerged in water, and celebrates the modern mermaid, as represented by beautiful young women who appear very much at home in the water. When Dweck scouted out the Weeki Wachee Spring, home of the famous mermaid shows, as a location for his mermaids project, he met a local young beauty who had been raised in Aripeka, an island fishing village on the coast nearby, and began photographing her. And through her, Dweck met other island girls—so-called “waterbabies”—some of whom could hold their breath underwater for as long as five or six minutes. He photographed them alone, together, and at play, but mostly at night in the depths of the Weeki Wachee River. Dweck also photographed in Montauk, Amagansett, and Miami, and the new images, while often abstracting the female body in a painterly swirl of watery refractions, celebrate the physical charm of the female form and the transformation that is achieved by the shedding of clothes and psychic baggage in the meditative isolation of the underwater world.

More Details:
Release date: October 2008
Printed and bound in USA by Finlay Press
ISBN 978-0-9818465-0-7

Also available in a limited edition Art Edition Box Set with a book and a chromogenic photograph, both signed by Michael Dweck

The duotone illustrations are made with a special treatment for black and white images that produces exquisite tonal range and density. All color illustrations are color-separated and reproduced in the finest technique available today, which provides unequalled intensity and color range.

Purchase $125

Listen to Christopher Sweet read the forward of the book here: