In 2009 I commenced a project of espionage in a Deep South lake I grew up swimming in. With a consumer, underwater surveillance camera I monitored all activity of aquatic wildlife and female swimmers. This camera was built by outdoorsmen to watch the sport of fishing below their boats.
This work investigates the definitions of ‘trophy;’ as a specimen preserved as a token of a successful hunt of an animal or the pursuit of a woman, and the ultimate, desired symbol of victory.
The Trophy ebbs and flows between the quiet of a tranquil habitat and dramatic displays of “the hunt.”The footage appears ridiculous as the grainy black and white imagery disrupts the female bodies’ physique and turns average fish into cartoonish monsters. The viewer becomes the voyeur waiting for the catch…. the fish to be ripped out of the water with the hook and line, or the female body to emerge of out of abstraction and focus into a concrete image.