Water has become for Howard Schatz what the air of the studio, the streets,or the great outdoors is for other photographers. He has so thoroughlyadapted it to his artistic purposes that he and his subjects might be thought of as a new species of amphibians, living their lives on land, but revealing their creativity beneath that infinitesimal membrane separating dry from wet. For the past fifteen years, Schatz has made water so much his own element, his own submerged pictorial world, that his work beneath the dappled surface of his swimming pool sets must be considered both entirely new and definitive. Schatz doesn’t give us time stopped, but instead creates a new, uncanny continuum. His pictures, somehow energetic and languid at the same time, do not imply the tension of split second levitation, but rather the kind of blissful, supernatural flight that normally takes place only in the shimmering territory of our fantasies. As he has said, “I’m not freezing action, I’m finding moments in a dream.” These bodies, unbound by the dour realities of Mr. Newton’s immutable laws, give us a singular artist’s view of – to borrow a term from engineering – fluid dynamics.Howard Schatz has had numerous exhibitions internationally.  His work has appeared in hundreds of publications, including Vanity Fair, Time, Vogue, Sports Illustrated, Life, The New York Times, GQ, Vogue Italia, The New Yorker, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Geo, Black & White, Stern, American Photo, and Entertainment Weekly.Schatz’s editorial and fashion photography is seen regularly in the United States and abroad, and he has created extraordinary images for such advertising clients as Ralph Lauren, Escada, Nike, Adidas, Sony, Finlandia Vodka, MGM Grand Hotel, Virgin Records (the Janet Jackson music video “Every Time”), Wolford, Showtime, and Mercedes-Benz. Howard Schatz lives in New York with Beverly Ornstein, his wife and business Partner.
(Text compiled from “H2O”, Schatz’s seventeenth book; release date: November 2007)