SWEPT UP
THE STORY
The Gold Coast, Australia
It took Maddie Neville and I 45+ minutes just to blow up this enormous inflatable swan.
We were on the beach getting dizzy, taking breaks between breaths, wondering at what point we’d made a terrible decision.
Once it was finally inflated, I swam the swan through the break so Mads could climb on. She did. I swam back to shore, grabbed my camera and hiked up to the headland.
By the time I reached the lookout, she was already getting swept in.
That’s the thing about making images like this. You can have the vision, but eventually you have to hand it over to the variables of the day — the wind, the waves, the timing, the chaos.
And somehow, that chaos became the photograph.
This one feels like a true portrait of the morning we had: slightly ridiculous, completely unpredictable, and somehow exactly right.
Making art from lemons.