BRUCE MOZERT: UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHER
Likely it is fair that we suspect most photographers carry on long love affairs with their cameras. Bruce Mozert, though, cared only to trick his. And by devious theatricality, great art was served.
With his coal-hauling business in Scranton spoiled by floods, Bruce joined his sis in the big city, where she introduced him to photographer Victor DePalma of LIFE Magazine. Suddenly Bruce’s course was redirected with a pledge to the image, and he took up an apprenticeship with DePalma. When it was discovered that the novice had real talent, he was sent out on assignment, covering beauty pageants, sporting events, even the Hindenburg disaster.
ORDINARY DOMESTIC SCENES GO UNDERWATER
In 1938, Bruce, just 21, headed to Florida’s Silver Springs, anxious to shoot stills at the set of the motion picture Tarzan Finds a Son. When he arrived he was dismayed to find that the contraption rigged for underwater work was unavailable to him. Determined to get his dramatic shot in waters famous for their clarity, Bruce bumbled about the set collecting helpful detritus-galvanized metal, an old inner tube, rubber cement-and improvised a device that would become the first-ever underwater camera.
After serving in the Air Force during World War II, Bruce was invited back to Silver Springs, embarking on a publicity campaign that came to resemble something more like a crusade of imaginers. The park’s PR department hoped to stimulate tourism with a few fanciful underwater scenes, but really for Mozert this was a life’s work begun, and he would not be shy in delivering his vision.
The idea was to simulate domestic routines subaqueously, fool the camera into believing all was ordinary, and yield a tableau that was anything but. To do this Bruce cleverly manipulated the environment to put forth lovely illusions. Under water a glass of champagne fizzes thanks to a tab of Alka-Seltzer. The grill smokes just as it would on dry land, with condensed milk poured in the water to puff and rise. And the lady submerged and reclined, reading the Sunday paper? Well, it’s shellacked so as not to dematerialize.
And my point exactly? The admirer of a Zoë Mozert pin-up indulges not only in the 2D bombshell, just as the admirer of a Bruce Mozert sub-sea photo observes much more than a swarm of convivial bathers. We who look are also witness to the artist’s sleight of hand-her disappearing act, his whimsical mimic-and so there is more to this beauty than meets the eye. But then, perhaps all allure is just a spell.
To purchase a copy of the book Silver Springs: The Underwater Photography of Bruce Mozert by Gary Monroe and signed by Mr. Mozert, write to mozertstudio@atlantic.net
IMAGE
Courtesy of Bruce Mozert