

An underwater photograph, very close. One open shell fills the middle of the frame, held flat in her one open palm: two black halves hinged apart, the inside of them smooth and grey and wet with a hard pearly shine, and there is nothing inside, only the empty hollow where a pearl would sit. Her palm and the shell are sharp and brightly lit and take up the lower half of the picture. Beyond her hand and softly out of focus, her face comes down close over it, tipped forward and turned a little away, her eyes on the shell, her mouth closed, her long hair drifting up and back off her head. The water behind her is solid black with no detail in it at all, and one thin shaft of light from far above catches the edge of her jaw. Only her one hand is in the picture. Two tones: the black water and the lit shell. Sharp on the empty hollow of the shell. Fine 35mm film grain. In the lower right corner, a small pencil signature: Ziggy