The sea has a funny way of returning things to shore when it’s done with them. Like the 28,800 bath toys that spilled into the sea in 1992 and were still found washing up on shores around the world over a decade later (the dispersed army of adorable, unsinkable yellow rubber duckies inspiring – amoung other things – a 416 page book) or the 80,000 pairs of shipwrecked Nikes that became the subject of an oceanographic study on drift routes and tides. Where things resurface is as much a fascination as why, and it’s easy to imagine the sea having some decisive power, some willfulness in the matter.
In Peter Coulson’s shoot Bois Flotte the three models are the titular drift wood, lost overboard and nudged ashore at the will of the sea. In the dramatic gowns by Vergara – which themselves mirror the creatures of the deep and the cloud-streked sky – there was only one place the ocean would choose to send these living pieces of sartorial flotsam: a place of dramatic stretching sands and stormy skies.
Coulson’s black and white photography makes the most of the breathtaking setting. Submerged in sand or sitting solitary amoungst it, the girls appear less like living models and more like beautiful beach-combed objects, just waiting to be discovered and tucked into the pocket of a passer by.
Starring models Natascha Verkaik, Milica Vujic & Sarah Deng, you can view the full shoot Bois Flotte (‘Drift Wood’) by Peter Coulson (peter-coulson.com.au) by clicking on the thumbnails.
