Turn to the first page, and it reveals the rip current hidden on the cover, unnoticed, at a real beach where a rip current has already taken a life.
Background
1 in 3 Australians
who drown at the beach are taken by a
rip current.
3 in 4 can't spot one.
(Surf Life Saving Australia, National Coastal Safety Report)
Context
Ocean pools are one of Australia's
most photographed
icons.
Coffee-table books about them are everywhere.
Idea
We hijacked how Australia sees its coastline to reveal the unnoticed danger:
the rips.
Execution
A hardcover book, shot like any coastal title on the shelf.
But with real stories.
Rip currents cause 37%
of all beach drowning
deaths in Australia.
Each page turn shifts the motion sideways,
the swimming technique to escape a rip current.
the swimming technique to escape a rip current.
Repetition turns a shape into recognition.
AD | Raf Potenza
Challenges
The brief was simple to say, brutal to execute. Make danger invisible in a beautiful photograph. Every image had to do two jobs in one glance: seduce, then unsettle.
The captions were where the real work happened. Too poetic, and you lose the truth. Too clinical, and the person behind the fact disappears. Finding that exact register, factual enough to believe, human enough to still feel like someone real, took longer than any photograph in the book.
The captions were where the real work happened. Too poetic, and you lose the truth. Too clinical, and the person behind the fact disappears. Finding that exact register, factual enough to believe, human enough to still feel like someone real, took longer than any photograph in the book.
obrigado!
