Propulsion is a series by Elizabeth Waterman. It is presented as follow:
Propulsion began with a single photograph of a jellyfish.
For more than a decade, Waterman photographed dancers and performers, becoming fascinated by movement, gesture, and the ways bodies move through light and space.
Then, during a visit to an aquarium, she photographed a jellyfish. Later, while editing, she placed the jellyfish image beside one of her dancer photographs and was stunned by the resemblance.
“Different worlds, but somehow the exact same energy,” she says.
That unexpected discovery became Propulsion, a new body of work that pairs photographs of jellyfish with images of dancers, revealing surprising similarities in rhythm, form, suspension, and movement.
What makes the project particularly compelling is that it isn’t really about jellyfish or dancers alone, but perception.
The jellyfish arrive free of cultural assumptions. The dancers do not. By placing the images together, Waterman invites viewers to reconsider how we assign meaning to bodies, beauty, performance, and identity.
“The jellyfish disrupt assumptions,” Waterman explains. “People start looking at movement, light, gesture, and transformation rather than stereotypes.”
Shot entirely on analog 35mm film, the series also reflects Waterman’s long-standing commitment to film photography. The unpredictability of film became part of the concept itself, mirroring the uncontrollable movement of both jellyfish and performers.
The project will be published as a monograph by Skira in Spring 2027 and is already generating interest among museums, aquariums, conservation organizations, and photography audiences for its unusual intersection of art, nature, and human behavior.
Elizabeth Waterman is a Los Angeles-based fine art photographer. A through-line in her body of work is the depiction of artists and performers of many genres and sub-cultures. Her distinctive photographs explore female sexuality, strippers and exotic dancers, drag queens, adult film actors, and portraits of artists. Her sold-out book MONEYGAME (XYZ books, 2021) features photographs of strippers from five cities across the U.S. (MONEYGAME II is in the works, scheduled for 2025). It has had exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Waterman’s new book, CANDYLAND – featuring color splashed portraits of female adult film actors shot outdoors during the pandemic, as well as a foreword by Stormy Daniels – was released by Unicorn Publishing on September 30, 2024.
Recently, Waterman has spent significant time in Thailand photographing “ladyboys” and women working in nightlife. She continues to photograph these subjects, and the images will comprise another book, MONEYGAME Thailand, to be published in late 2026. Also in the works are several TV projects, including MONEYGAME Thailand, a docu-follow series on Ladyboys working in nightlife in Thailand.
Additionally, Waterman is working on a new series featuring diptychs of richly cross-processed colored images of dancers, to be shown at Photo London with Albumen Gallery in 2026.
Waterman also has an extensive commercial and editorial portfolio. Her photographs have been featured in shows at the old Limelight Church/Jue Lan Club (NYC), Wallplay (NYC), and Olson-Irwin (Sydney), auctioned on Artnet.com, and showcased on L’Oeil de La Photographie.com. Her commercial clients include MS Magazine and fashion designers Elie Tahari and Marc Jacobs. Born in Taos, New Mexico in 1985, Waterman holds a B.A. in Fine Art from the University of Southern California.
Instagram: @elizabeth.waterman
