Step into a Soo Burnell photograph and the world goes still. The pool is empty. Not a splash, not a ripple. A single figure stands centered, small yet deliberate, almost reverent. The space around them stretches wide in pastel hues and perfect lines. It’s not a moment captured: it’s a moment curated.

She magically photographs moments that perfectly capture a feeling of pause.

Based in Edinburgh, Burnell has carved a unique space in contemporary photography, building her name on the architecture of memory. Her best-known series, “Poolside,” is less about swimming and more about serenity—a collection of eerily calm indoor pools across Europe, shot with the precision of a Wes Anderson scene and the soul of a childhood recollection.

These are not your neighborhood gyms or hotel spas. These pools, some historic, some nearly forgotten, are cathedrals of color and light. Aquatic sanctuaries with symmetry so precise, it feels like the walls themselves are meditating. Blues and pinks, mint greens and butter yellows, checkerboard floors and diving platforms—all arranged like a visual lullaby.

Burnell’s figures, usually lone women in vintage-style swimsuits, seem plucked from time. They don’t swim, they stand. Waiting. Thinking. They could be ghosts or saints or dreamers. They echo something distant in us—our childhoods, our daydreams, the days we wanted time to slow down.

“I wanted to capture the quiet elegance of these spaces before they disappear,” Burnell has said. But her work does more than preserve architecture. It elevates it. She turns structure into stage, nostalgia into narrative. Every photo whispers the same gentle question: Do you remember when the world felt this still?

Her influence spans beyond pool tiles and arches. With a background in fine art and a deep love for geometry, Burnell has an intuitive sense for the balance between human presence and architectural grace. Her compositions guide the eye gently, never forcing. Always inviting.

In an era of loud art and louder social media, Burnell’s work is refreshingly hushed. It doesn’t beg to be liked; it asks to be looked at—really looked at. To be entered like a dream and exited a little more aware of your breath.

She reminds us that space is emotional. That design holds memory. That stillness can be more moving than motion.

And in doing so, she offers us something rare: an oasis.

Get in touch today with the 1905 Team to learn more about available Soo Burnell works.