Pantz Pool, 1985

El Rincon, Marbella

According to the archive caption, this is El Rincon, the von Pantz family home near Marbella, in September 1985. The pool runs out into the horizon, so that seawater and pool water seem to be one surface.

From the 1950s onwards Marbella on the Costa del Sol drew the international jet set, helped by Prince Alfonso von Hohenlohe's Marbella Club. It is exactly the kind of place Aarons travelled to throughout his career: houses with time, space and a view.

The assistant on the edge

The woman in the pink swimsuit and white hat is Laura Hawk, the photographer's assistant. Not a guest, then, but someone who knows where the camera is. She leans back, legs stretched out along the water, and poses with the ease of someone who knows the work from close by.

That gives the picture a charge of its own. Here someone from Aarons' own working life stands in front of the lens, and you can see it in how relaxed she is: nothing about the pose feels imposed.

Reflection and stillness

The water lies so flat that it repeats everything: the yucca on the left, the white hat, the dogs. To her right, black bronze dogs sit on the same edge, as motionless as she is. The reflection fills the lower half of the photograph and is calmer still than what stands above it.

It is a quiet, almost empty picture: one person, a few sculptures and the sea. For more of Aarons' Mediterranean pools, read the story behind Eden-Roc Pool.

On the wall

Pantz Pool is a landscape image with a calm, horizontal structure: the pool edge, the horizon and the reflection below. It works well above a sofa, a bed or a long sideboard. The pink of the swimsuit stands out and sits nicely with white, sand and terracotta.