St. Malo is a maritime city. It has always made its reputation and living from the sea. It is remembered in history as the City of Corsairs, sending its famous mariners out to make discoveries, fight wars, and seize foreign ships as prizes. Yet these St. Malo boats are not going anywhere until the tide returns. I made this image from high on the ramparts surrounding the city, fascinated by the sight of six boats in various stages of distress. It is an incongruous concept – we are used to seeing boats riding at anchor in the water, not uselessly anchored while on land. I organized my picture around the “s-curve” or “zigzag” principle. I want to pull your eye back and forth across the frame as you move back into the picture. I anchor my image (pun intended) at the bottom of the frame. The dark mass of kelp surrounding the helpless boat in the lower right foreground is the focal point of the picture. I hope you will then move back to the left, comparing the only ship that seems to be actually floating at anchor to its beached companions. Our eyes move up its mast to the boat just behind it, and then sweep right along a string of muck to another boat, just inland, before returning left again, back to the shoreline. While we are busily moving back and forth, we are also moving into the depths of this picture. As we arrive at the most distant boats, we come to dry sand and a curving beach, and then the sea finally carries us out of the picture at upper right. This kind of composition is the equivalent of a journey, and works best when that journey is the point of the picture itself. In this case, it most certainly is.