ARTIST STATEMENT
I'm Aldara. I've been shooting underwater since 2010, and honestly, being underwater saved me.
I studied fashion design in Madrid, but I have always been drawn to artistic creation in all its forms, especially when the female body is at the center. As a woman and an artist, I am fascinated by how much we hold at once: strength and vulnerability, sensuality and power, grace and raw emotion. My photography celebrates that complexity, the full spectrum of what it means to inhabit a female body.
While building my artistic career in New York City, I lost access to my painting studio. The city felt relentless, noise everywhere, and nowhere to create. Swimming in a local indoor pool became my refuge, a way to quiet everything and return to myself.
Water became my escape.
Beneath the surface I found a different world: muted sound, and a quality of light that moves through reflections and refractions, transforming everything it touches. With it came a feeling I had never experienced above water, absolute presence, weightlessness, and the visceral sensation of being fully held at the same time. I found support, serenity, and freedom. Underwater photography was born from that discovery, and from a deep desire to hold onto that feeling and bring it into every part of my life, and to share it.
What started as mixed media, painting directly over my underwater photographs, evolved over time into a fully digital practice, while keeping color and painterly intention at its core. Today I treat each photograph the way a painter treats a canvas, touching every area of the image individually, building light and feeling from within. I call it painting with light. People often tell me my work looks like paintings. That is exactly what I am going for.
The surface reflection you see in most of my images is my signature, a mirror between worlds where everything doubles and transforms. The colors are equally intentional. These are emotional self-portraits. I am deeply connected to my subjects during every shoot, feeling what they feel, and that exchange is what lives inside the frame. Inspired by my passion for dance, I bring that same energy and emotion into the water.
Every immersion begins with a concept, but the essence of it is spontaneous. Underwater, many elements are beyond full control, light, movement, breath, and that unpredictability is part of what makes each image alive. The muse and I hold our breath at the same time. I have shot everywhere: swimming pools, oceans, cenotes, open water across the Caribbean and Mediterranean.
Different series explore different ideas. "What Would You Rather Be?" looks at perception, "Coral Dream" dives into color and coral formations in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef in Roatán, and "Freedom in Confinement" plays with paradox. But it all comes back to the same questions: How does water transform us? What happens when we surrender to it? That is what I thrive creating, the transformative energy of water, inviting you to connect with its profound emotional resonance.
I'm Aldara. I've been shooting underwater since 2010, and honestly, being underwater saved me.
I studied fashion design in Madrid, but I have always been drawn to artistic creation in all its forms, especially when the female body is at the center. As a woman and an artist, I am fascinated by how much we hold at once: strength and vulnerability, sensuality and power, grace and raw emotion. My photography celebrates that complexity, the full spectrum of what it means to inhabit a female body.
While building my artistic career in New York City, I lost access to my painting studio. The city felt relentless, noise everywhere, and nowhere to create. Swimming in a local indoor pool became my refuge, a way to quiet everything and return to myself.
Water became my escape.
Beneath the surface I found a different world: muted sound, and a quality of light that moves through reflections and refractions, transforming everything it touches. With it came a feeling I had never experienced above water, absolute presence, weightlessness, and the visceral sensation of being fully held at the same time. I found support, serenity, and freedom. Underwater photography was born from that discovery, and from a deep desire to hold onto that feeling and bring it into every part of my life, and to share it.
What started as mixed media, painting directly over my underwater photographs, evolved over time into a fully digital practice, while keeping color and painterly intention at its core. Today I treat each photograph the way a painter treats a canvas, touching every area of the image individually, building light and feeling from within. I call it painting with light. People often tell me my work looks like paintings. That is exactly what I am going for.
The surface reflection you see in most of my images is my signature, a mirror between worlds where everything doubles and transforms. The colors are equally intentional. These are emotional self-portraits. I am deeply connected to my subjects during every shoot, feeling what they feel, and that exchange is what lives inside the frame. Inspired by my passion for dance, I bring that same energy and emotion into the water.
Every immersion begins with a concept, but the essence of it is spontaneous. Underwater, many elements are beyond full control, light, movement, breath, and that unpredictability is part of what makes each image alive. The muse and I hold our breath at the same time. I have shot everywhere: swimming pools, oceans, cenotes, open water across the Caribbean and Mediterranean.
Different series explore different ideas. "What Would You Rather Be?" looks at perception, "Coral Dream" dives into color and coral formations in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef in Roatán, and "Freedom in Confinement" plays with paradox. But it all comes back to the same questions: How does water transform us? What happens when we surrender to it? That is what I thrive creating, the transformative energy of water, inviting you to connect with its profound emotional resonance.