Helen Walne: Why women swim naked in a Cape Town kelp forest
"I photograph women swimming naked in a kelp forest." Author and underwater photographer Helen Walne began by shooting kelp, then jellyfish, then women. Then one day, they took their costumes off.
- Sonya Schoeman
AT A GLANCE HOW THIS STAY REDUCES ITS IMPACT
Energy usage Entirely
Water usage Drawn
Culture + community Employ
Biodiversity + ecosystems Partner
Carbon footprint To Yamu Lifestyle Resort from Cape Town return = 0.08 tCO2
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50 Women in the Water: how Helen Walne's kelp forest shoots began
I never intended to do naked shoots at all. It was bathing suits. The first one came about because I woke up one morning and obviously had either way too much sleep or too little sleep, and I just put it out on Instagram.
It had this idea that I wanted to shoot 50 women… in the water, which was insane, because my camera lens would never be wide enough for that many people. And in the caption I just said something like, if you want to be involved, contact me. And I was inundated with people wanting to do it.
At first it was clothed and it was fewer people. I think it was like 12 women. And then the next one was about 24, 26, and that was the group that decided that they wanted to do it without bathing suits. One of them said, “No ways, I want to take this off.” And then everyone else followed. Now I have over 200 people on the WhatsApp group.
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Gully sharks and no predatory eyes: why the sea feels safer than land
I never feel vulnerable… in the kelp. I feel a lot more vulnerable on land, where there are human systems.
We have gully sharks, and they are very harmless… to humans. I used to go at dawn to where they used to live. There would be like 12 or 13. And they sort of circle the reef, one after each other. And even though they’re so skittish, I found that if you can hold your breath and go down and just sort of lounge around on the sandy bottom, and you stay really still, they can come, honestly, like centimetres above your face. It’s amazing.
I think that our eyes are way more predatory… than other animals’ are. And some animals don’t even have eyes.
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Why women are queuing to join these underwater shoots
Pretty much all of these women have said that that sense of freedom… is unique, and something that they crave and don’t experience in their daily lives. I think it’s being able to just freely remove your clothing with no predatory eyes and nothing to worry about. And I think it’s also the freedom of being with other women in a group. And the freedom to play as well.
So the sense of freedom is, I think, taking your clothes off… and being able to be concealed. Although we did have a tourist arrive at one of our sessions once, and the water was quite clear that day, so maybe there wasn’t as much concealment as we all thought. He did look quite startled.
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Inside the wildly fun sessions in the Great African Kelp Forest
So before, usually people are strangers… and they’re quiet, and there’s a little bit of contemplation and a little bit of, “I don’t know what to expect”. Some people are quite shy. But obviously they’re there because they know they’re going to take their clothes off, which I find very interesting.
We get in in our costumes because…. we don’t want to get kicked out or be arrested. I’m always fully costumed, which is not very power-equal. We start taking the costumes off in the water, and then I usually have like 100 bathing costumes wrapped around my neck and stuffed in my rash vest. It’s hilarious.
I would say the first ten minutes are quite businesslike… in some way. You know, there’s this, “What do you want us to do?” And then I’m like, “Well, swim past each other, whatever…” and then I often just have no ideas left.
As we go on, there’s a lot of laughter… and giggling. It’s like being a child. Like hysterical laughter. We’ll get someone pop up and say, “Oh my god, I realised my legs were wide open.”
Someone else will say, “Oh my god, are you squashed up against my boobs?” And it’s a stranger. How often do you get to do that? I think when we’re adults, we are out of touch with that part of ourselves that does silly things.
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"Oh, I saw your butt": what a cold-water swim strips away
It’s the afterwards that is so significant. They all just run out naked. They can’t be bothered to put their costumes on, because now there’s been this free experience, and it seems absurd that one would put one’s clothes back on. So that’s quite a sight, I think.
Afterwards, everyone gets warm, and the conversation is just flowing… and they’re laughing about things that happened and going, “Oh, I saw your butt.” It basically just strips away all of the concealment that we do with one another, and it brings it down to this very elemental level.
We had one woman, an older woman… who said she’d always felt so uncomfortable with her body. And after doing that, we were sitting having tea afterwards, and she said, “Wow, you know, I just didn’t think about it.”
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Body image and the sea: why all bodies feel beautiful in the water
I think all bodies feel beautiful in the water. I mean, they do look beautiful in the water. We all do. But I think it’s also that we feel beautiful in the water.
When I swim, I don’t really think about my body… because actually on land, you’re always thinking about your body, because you are in a space that is not enveloping you, and you’re always observed.
I think most people forget about all their shit when… they’re in the water. That’s why we swim.