Cig Harvey British, b. 1973

A harbour at dusk, seen from a little above. Dark blue water fills most of the frame. Near the top, two moored boats, one white and one red, and a scatter of mooring buoys reading as small dark dots across the surface. Beyond them a low shore with snow on it, dark trees, a spit of land, and a band of warm light along the horizon under a cold sky. A little above the centre of the frame there is a head. Around the head, rings.

The rings are what the picture is for. Concentric, evenly spaced, spreading outward from a single point across water so still that it has been holding the whole sky all evening without a mark on it. They are the record of a body going in, and they are already flattening at the outer edge. In another twenty seconds there will be nothing here to photograph.

Take the swimmer out and this is a competent view of a Maine harbour in winter, of which there are a great many. Leave her in, at that size, and the entire surface becomes a report on one decision. The boats are laid up. The shore has snow on it. The light is nearly gone. Somebody looked at all of that and got into the water anyway, and the photograph does not editorialise. It shows where the water was broken and how far the news had travelled by the time the shutter opened.