Ocean pool series captures our connection with water for National Library

Photographer Vincent Rommelaere came to Australia on a working holiday 20 years and fell in love with the coast. Now his images of the Illawarra's ocean pools are held in the National Library of Australia.

"Rock pools have always been one of my favourite things to shoot," he says.

"They're such an Australian thing, and NSW has an incredible concentration of them, well over a hundred along this coast. During Covid, I self-published Rock Pools Sydney. So when the National Library asked me to cover the Illawarra, I jumped at it. It meant more pools to explore and a chance to extend the collection further down the coast."

As part of the Australians’ Relationship with Water pictures collecting project, Vincent documented 25 rock pools from Bulgo Beach to Gerringong. As well as capturing each pool's characteristics and surrounding environment, his images speak volumes about Australian society.

"I'm originally from France," Vincent says.

"I first came to Sydney in 2005 on a working holiday visa, as a backpacker, and fell for the place straight away: the city, the lifestyle and the coast. I've worked as a photographer and videographer for most of my career, and in 2018 I started selling prints through AustraliaUnseen.com, because people kept asking to put images from my collection on their walls. The coast has been my subject ever since."

Pools are for everyone

"When you picture the Australian lifestyle, it's coffee, surf, avo toast (I'm a millennial) and a sunrise swim. Ocean pools sit right at the heart of that.

"They're for everyone, every age and every walk of life. They're part of the country's history too. A lot of them were built generations ago by locals who just wanted somewhere safe to swim, and they've been quietly holding communities together ever since. Most of them are free.

"And they're full of stories, from Olympians who trained in them to the 80-year-olds still there every morning, right through winter."

Other than the vagaries of the weather in a city that can switch from sunny to southerly buster on any given summer's day, photographing ocean pools was pretty much a dream job.

"Wollongong has its own micro-climate, so it keeps you guessing," Vincent says.

There were a few challenges in reaching and photographing remote pools, such as Campbell Hole at Gerringong.

"It's tricky to reach because of the tide, and it only really works in the morning before the cliff throws it into shade by lunchtime. To come away with a single frame there I had to go back several times, waiting for the weather, the tide and the light to all line up at once. That's the part people don't see."

Vincent is proud to have his work in the National Library, where 114 of his images will be held for posterity as part of a project documenting the wide range of ways water shapes our lives, landscapes and ecosystems. The collection takes in everything from traditional First Nations fishing practices to Great Barrier Reef research, revealing water's profound significance across the continent.

"It's a real reward. As an immigrant, being able to add something to Australian culture and history means a lot to me," Vincent says.

"And as a photographer, having the work kept in a national collection is the best kind of recognition for the years I've put into it. These pools are always changing, and with rising seas and bigger storms, some of them may not survive in the form we know them. A few might not be here at all for the next generation. That's part of why an archive like this matters."

Visit Vincent's website australiaunseen.com or follow @australiaunseen