The Leap

Every summer afternoon the same rock, the same queue of teenagers and the same second of silence before the splash. I stood on the opposite ledge for an hour to get one figure alone against the water.

Scale

The frame works because the person is tiny. Any closer and it becomes a sports picture; from here it is a picture about the sea.

The queue is the real story and the one nobody photographs: the dares, the backing out, the older brother who goes first. I have those frames too. The magazine wanted the leap.

A 200 mm from the far ledge, 1/1600, the focus set on the rock and left there. Thirty jumps, one frame where the body is a line. The rest look like falling.