Buoyed by a sense of serenity and infinite weightlessness—seeing this young girl quietly floating along, both wild and limitlessly graceful, I’m immersed in this photograph’s ethereal qualities, which transport me to this moment of transient beauty.

Jake Rutherford, Photo Coordinator

I envy this girl. I want to wade just like Mawunmula and feel the sun shining through my closed eyelids. The feeling of buoyant bobbing almost overtakes me, even as I recline in my cubicle in the distant adjacent hemisphere. The composition is simple and the content straightforward, yet it is visually visceral in the way that it accesses my senses. It feels like a flood.

For me, this image has a character of equality. It doesn’t matter if Mawunmula is poor and