Palm Springs Swimming Pool Number 1

Lawrence Schiller, Palm Springs Fashion, No. 8, 1964/printed 2011, digital chromogenic print, Courtesy of Judith and Lawrence Schiller, Lawrence Schiller © Polaris Communications, Inc.

It's Palm Springs pool time in 1964. The two-piece, polka-dot bathing suits, one red and one green, capture the essence of the pre-hippie days.

The Backyard Oasis swimming pool photo exhibition features not only images of people sitting by their swimming pools, but also people swimming underwater caught with an underwater camera, a not-so-new technology at the time (the first underwater image was taken in 1926).

If you are old enough to recall those were the days Jacques Cousteau (remember John Denver's 1975 song about Cousteau's boat). He and his crew took thousands of underwater images and motion picture film for The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, which began a year after this image was taken. Today, anyone can take photographs underwater. So...go ahead and play Cousteau with your underwater camera in a Palm Springs swimming pool. The process can be quite elaborate with underwater video cameras and fashion models strutting their stuff. However, nothing beats an everyday person in a sixties bathing suit taken decades ago.

 Check out the Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography, 1945-1982
 
downtown prints