Mixed Media
ART A new book from Sarah Kaufman ’03 showcases 60 of the photographs chosen from the thousands she has taken of Devil’s Pool in Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley Park.
s a child growing up near Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley Park, photographer Sarah Kaufman ’03 spent hours exploring the nearly-2,000-acre urban oasis. With her Germantown neighborhood skirting the southeast corner of the park, she and her family visited on a regular basis; when she was older, Kaufman explored it on her own. “I did a lot of hiking in the park, and wading and looking for crayfish and catching tadpoles in Wissahickon Creek,” she says. “I remember learning to ride a bike there on a wide gravel trail, and wiping out by a covered bridge.” Now an assistant professor of photography and art at Ursinus College, Kaufman was especially drawn to Devil’s Pool, a 15-foot-deep by 25-foot-wide basin within the park where city dwellers seek relief from
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summer heat. “Part of growing up was swimming in Devil’s Pool. I remember watching the jumpers (from surrounding rock cliffs), and I have a great memory of sliding down the frozen waterfall there, and walking into the middle of the pool on ice,” she says. It’s a magical place, says Kaufman, and it’s the subject of her first book, Devil’s Pool (Daylight Books). Packed with 60 color photos chosen from thousands she has taken, the book reflects her fascination with the human body and our connection to nature. “Devil’s Pool has this pull, this beauty of place, and it’s such a source of community,” says Kaufman, who used her 50-year-old twin-lens Rolleiflex camera for the project. She began shooting in 2014 and finished in 2020, with some pauses she says, to have two children, now ages two and five. (Kaufman’s husband, Duncan Holby ’05, is a FALL 2021
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