The sands of Imperial Beach are filled with visitors during summer weekends. I tell that story by moving in on them with a long telephoto zoom lens. I use this long lens to stress my point by compressing the bathers, bringing them even closer together than they actually are. Although the scene is very crowded, I make the image coherent by leaving the only real empty space at the bottom of the frame, creating a spatial anchor for the young man running towards us with the belly-board under his arm. Our eyes go right to him, and then take in the vast supporting cast, many of them shaded by a mass of multicolored umbrellas that dominate the balance of the frame.