Be the Mermaid
Maritime Museum Exhibit Celebrates the Art of Being a Mermaid
By Maggie Yates | November 11, 2021
SHINE ON: Erin M. Brydon’s photo captures the ideal of mermaid undersea serenity.
In the limitless blue sea, iridescence glimmers off the scales of her slick and powerful tail. She is graceful and glamorous, a dancer of the depths, this mermaid captured on camera. Jewels in her hair, gills at her ribs, the model in Erin Brydon’s photograph is a vision of pin-up perfection, but she is not a Photoshopped fantasy. This magic illusion is evidence of collaboration between a photographer and a trained mermaid model — as close to a real mermaid as you can get.
This image, part of the exhibit Mermaids: Visualizing the Myths and Legends Through Photography, is one of many on display at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. The show celebrates the work of Brooks Institute photographers who’ve done the impossible: captured images of mermaids in the wild. Specifically, they took these images in the ocean off the Channel Islands, where they found their subjects deep in ocean lore.
Mermaids have universal appeal. These beings with human intelligence can live underwater in a world that we can only access with vehicles and gear. They combine strength and sensuality in an appealing way that exudes the aura of freedom a romanticized life at sea offers.
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