Awesome Underwater Photographs

Artists often attempt to picture the world from alternative views and odd angles in order to get a fresh perspective on the quirks and idiosyncrasies of everyday life.

For Canadian photographer Laurel Johannesson the world is at its most bizarre and beautiful when viewed through water. While swimming in Lido di Venezia in Italy, Johannesson found herself fascinated by the dream-like world of mirror images, refracting light and warped figures that emerged when she began taking photographs while submerged in water.

The resulting photographs provide a mesmerising insight into our world, familiar yet somehow alien in their distortion, with the artist seeing the dream-like vulnerability of the images as alluding to "the equation between desire and voyeurism". And by printing on metallic paper and laminating the images with a thick layer of acrylic, Johannesson was able to enhance the already otherworldly quality of the photographs.

For those of us that cannot see the images in the flesh, here is a virtual tour through Johannesson's fascinating new exhibit.