I was working on an image featuring two empty armchairs watching the golden evening surf cascading towards them. The chairs, complemented by brilliant red beach toys at their bases, made a lovely evening scene. Suddenly a young woman walked into my frame. I held my shot, waiting for her to get out of my picture. Just as she passed behind the second chair she stopped, and gracefully threw one leg into the air and bent forward on the other to retrieve a tiny shell cast up by the sea. I spontaneously changed my mind, and made this image of her, just as her raised toe seemed to hover above the chair. Actually, she was well beyond the chair, but if her toe had been any lower, it would have merged with it and destroyed the beauty and tension of the moment. This image offers a more humane story than my previous “empty chairs” idea. It relates nature to mankind, and the lovely context intensifies that relationship.