I picked up Linda Troeller's book, Healing Waters, by chance earlier this year, I was drawn to her photographs of people in water. Photographing pools, bodies in pools, seems to me a difficult thing to do. Most pools have strict rules regarding photography, especially when nudity is involved. So pools remain a part of the imagination, or the subject of a hurried and secretive snap. Indeed, perhaps one of the reasons that bathing rituals are so steeped in mystery is that they are so hard to photograph and really rely on the individual experiencing them first hand.

Linda's photographs are not secretive, they evoke perfectly the sensation of being in water, the feeling of floating somewhere beautiful. Healing Waters is a sensual journey that takes in some of my favourite pools, including those at Therme Vals and Beppu. When I sit in my living room in East London, and leaf through these images, it feels as though I'm still there. Not only do Linda's photographs make me want to explore the other pools in her books, but the images themselves are colourful, peaceful, meditative in themselves. Looking at her photographs is almost like being in a pool itself.

Tell us about yourself!
I was a drama student at Ghost Ranch Summer Workshops in New Mexico during college. We were invited to Georgia O'Keeffe's for lunch as she had a house on the property at that time. I was struck by the portraits Steiglitz made of her on her walls. Shortly after that the director of gave me a Rollei camera and I discovered drama in the square viewfinder. I went back to my college and changed my major from drama and law to enter the School of Journalism in photography.

I moved to New York City in 1994. Since I went received my MFA at School of Art, Syracuse University, I thought about getting a loft in the city after graduation with my peers but instead I was chosen for a great photo teaching position. It wasn't until after I was living abroad and working with Agence Vu in Paris and Grazia Neri Agency in Milan in the early 90s that I decided I really wanted to try NYC! So, I moved into the Chelsea Hotel in 1994.

In the first year Alexander McQueen was introduced to me in the lobby and came to see my Healing Waters photographs in my room/studio. He invited me to his first fashion show in NYC in the lower east side. When I came back to the lobby I had my camera on my shoulder and guests asked me to make their portrait that evening. From then on I started photographing my life in the hotel.

In 1998 I spent some months photographing some of the terrific apartments in the hotel. When I heard that the hotel was approached by a major hotel chain to be sold, I decided to prepare a book dummy which is now in consideration with a publisher. I have also photographed some of the artists who have lived and are living here. I loved the stories Jean Claude and Christo and Ralph Gibson told me as well artists such as Sir David Remfy and Robert Lambert who live here now. The book project has these interviews in it as well.

I am evolving a digital installation with the work as well. The Chelsea Hotel is a Landmark and one of the few urban places still in operation that encourages creativity in a loosely-knit artist community. The mood seems to come from the walls and travels up the gothic staircase. People who arrive with a fresh dream catch the drift and stay.

I have been very interested in identity, sex, health and place. My first work was called Greenhouse and Beyond which was exhibited at Everson Museum. I won Women of the Year from Douglass College for my TB AIDS
Diary dealing with stigma, and my book, Erotic Lives of Women, was reviewed in the NY Times Book Review and shown in Salzburg in 2000 and Berlin last year.

My most successful project is an Aperture book, Healing Waters, which won Pictures of the Year awards. The images are in major museum collections and have been exhibited around the world.

I have also had three fashion art commissions from Apolda Avante Garde in Germany and this year my catalogue was released with Karl Lagerfeld show there. My new work is focused on 'place, 'closer to home, where I live – The Chelsea Hotel.

What does the future hold for your work?
Jeff McKay’s film “Linda Troeller: A Portrait,” is due out in 2007 so for that, I will fly to Winnipeg, Canada next year to record voice-overs. We will be creating an art exhibition/installation of prints and clips shot at the Chelsea Hotel, a spa in Germany and with my gallerist in France, to travel with the film to be shown in galleries at film festival theatres.

What qualities make a watery experience a good one?
Atmosphere, natural water without additives like chlorine, and time to get in touch with its deep history and forces.

I love the way that you include yourself in your work, that you aren't a photographer who stays distant from her subject.
The experience of being in the water is highly personal, immediate and subjective so it is hard to translate. However, by using motion and mood I have achieved a way to transfer this feeling to the viewer of my images. In other situations including fashion I use these two methods too.

Are there spas where you haven't been that you'd like to visit?
I would like to visit the spas of Thailand and Hong Kong. They are evolving new hybrid therapies that mix their traditions and the knowledge of the spa world, which today, floats back and forth so quickly. I am also interested in unique treatments which can be offered even at a local day spa such as oxygen and other detox ideas.

Linda Troeller's books are available in the UK

www.lindatroeller.com