top of page

[Photography] Interview with Peter Carellini


[KELP JOURNAL] This project is so interesting, Peter, let’s dive in (pun completely intended). These images are from a project called “Diver’s Log” which features pages from your own diving log from a recent trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Normally at Kelp, we feature images with landscapes and people. Your images, in contrast, are more documentary in nature (which is the same with all photography to a degree). Can you talk about what inspired you to share your logs with the world this way? 


[PETER CARELLINI] And I thank you for including a decidedly not visual series of images, truly!


Art has, to me, always encapsulated more than just creative flair - in particular, something like a blueprint, or an old record book, catches my artistic eye like quicksilver. Maybe I think about the way it was typed, in what kind of environment, during some special era in the world. What kind of story did a payroll record tell? Whether intentional or not, these things create artistry in the purest sense of the word - human hands telling a story through different visual forms. Hell, paperwork with a pen is one of my favorite parts of any job. 


So, after every dive, we record specifications like water visibility and maximum depth in our diver’s log. It’s a simple delight for me, tangibly writing statistical observations down. At the bottom of each dive page is a comment section, which got me thinking:how does one leave a simple comment on something so ethereal as a dive? Speaking in prose is the only way to describe something as incalculable as the ocean.


And when I saw this data entry with the poems below them, the dive master stamp of certification overall, I suddenly saw something harmonious - not just disparate elements. The starting and ending pressure gauge, the wildlife seen, and most importantly, how long my dive lasted - these are artistic. They are seen through my eyes and seldom, if ever, match perfectly with another diver. By placing all kinds of poetry alongside data, I wanted someone reading to determine for themselves which was scientific and which was artistic. Does my poem about my fearful night dive not tell someone the conditions, the scientific reality of that pitch-black ocean? And if only I recorded wildlife that no one else saw, isn’t there art in how I was looking?


[KJ] The images contain not only the technical aspects of your dives, like the time in/time out and the max depth, as well as your observations of the wildlife you saw, but also various writing by you: poems, essays, etc. What about diving got your creative juices flowing? 


[PC] Oh, diving gets all the juices going automatically. Like Turner watching a lightning storm while tied at the mast to paint it later, a complete immersion in nature opens your vision far wider than most anything else. Romance stirs when you fly under the sea. It clears the soul out of impurities. A casual snorkel for just a half-hour in that oceanic silence is tonic for your mind.


Furthermore, I aver that wearing different hats is the best tried and true way to flow those juices. Scuba diving requires about a half-dozen! You are at once an adventurer and technician (if you screw up, you may actually die), a scientist observing and an organism humbled before the mighty seas. Every angle of sharp instinct and perfect movement is counteracted by childlike glee at seeing a sea turtle float by you. Diving reconciles and evokes all the different people inside of me - and in that reconciliation is where art lives and breathes. 


I also have to mention that for a portion of the diving we remained out on the water for three days with no wi-fi, under a glowing Milky Way. That would make the most logical human romantic. No better time to summon that writing focus than being unplugged in a cabin as the waves rock back and forth. I even had a cup of tea with me.


[KJ] Diving the Great Barrier Reef is a bucket list item for me but I have been worried about the bleaching and dying coral beds. Did you experience any evidence of these or other man-made negative effects on the reef during your dive? 


[PC] I saw bleaching, yes. The volunteer program that took me out into the depths was to help study and record wildlife populations, note coral health, and remove any rubbish. There was a constantly blooming despair in my stomach as I swam above these reefs, knowing that even in their beauty they were far from fully healthy. I was furious and frightened in equal fits. I pray the orcas finish triumphantly in their ongoing war against the yachts, and some bulky bird species find a similar approach to the private jets. 


But - but - I should take this interview to stress, the Great Barrier Reef is not dead. Many parts of it remain alive and thriving. Sea life still swims abundantly. That statement isn’t born from doubt or denial - the conservation team I was with reiterated how crucial it is to remind people that it can be saved. We need that hope to remain in order to continue that fight. 


There exists countless volunteer opportunities to contribute towards repowering the reef. If you truly want to dive there - what better way to do so than in a way that helps it live on? You will feel the grace of nature as never before.


[KJ] In addition to diving and art making, you are also a filmmaker, an actor, and writer. I always wonder if such multi-talented people feel like their disciplines affect one another? 


[PC] But of course! It not only does, it must. All art, at one time or another, evolved from a previous discipline, and they continue to do so. Poetry helped my acting rhythm and my artifice in my dialogue, photography helped my filmmaking composition and my storytelling. The cycle keeps your practice fresh, like blood donation.


People are beautiful, multi-faceted creatures. More than one discipline is required to tell your tale. Besides, it prevents you from resentment when you come to a crawl in one pursuit. No one’s buying my script or casting me? Better forget that and take my camera to the grasslands!


[KJ] I like to ask my multifaceted creators if the form of a project picks them or if they pick the form. Do you know if something is a photo series, novel, a stage play, or a poem off the bat or do you have to play around a bit to figure it out? 


[PC] That’s a wonderful question to ask. In my case - not at all. Usually, I start with an image, a really striking image I can’t get out of my mind, and reverse engineer to find the perfect home for that image. This can go on for months, for years even, and it doesn’t always guarantee a final apotheosis; I’ve had projects change media twice before abandoning them all together. If the idea can’t find any home, it goes straight into the freezer of my mind, perhaps to be withdrawn and microwaved one day in the future. Funnily enough, Diver’s Log took immediate form and was finished in the month. How about that ocean inspiration, eh?


My shapeshifting isn’t purely a creative process. You can’t ignore finance: it’s difficult to fund a short film, much easier to fund a photo series. My reach often exceeds my grasp, and I’m damned if I don’t see a dream world I love come to life. What if I die tomorrow and that movie never gets made?! At least the book version is finished. Sometimes a little fear of the reaper goes a long way for an artist.  


This reminds me of a contradiction that always makes me chuckle: you mention writing poetry and most people think that to be snobbish, but a poem never once requires a dollar. Everyone can write poetry. Everyone’s existence is art.




Peter Carellini is a filmmaker, photographer, SAG actor and writer based in NYC, and currently a Pushcart Prize nominee for 2026. His photography and poems, short stories, and essays have been published in over a half dozen publications - including Travel + Leisure, Bruxelles Art Vue, Rabble Review, and Mythos Magazine - while his directorial, no budget film debut “Hello, World!” had its public premiere at the Greenpoint Gallery in October of 2021. His scientific short film “Microscopic Melodies of 2025,” has just been selected to be hosted on Labocine, a website celebrating scientific films. In his spare time, he loves the disco, cooking tomato sauce, and traveling the world. 


His project, Diver's Log, contains scanned pages from his diving log after a recent trip to the Great Barrier Reef - however, in the comments section are various forms of poetry written. Peter’s goal here is to let the viewer decide which is the art, and which is the science, and to see how they reconcile with one another; they are, after all, two ways of observing the same thing.

Comentarios


bottom of page