Magnum Editions: Florida. USA, 1999

The U.S. coastline is fertile creative ground for Constantine Manos, who has been shooting it since 1952. As long as the photographer operates “discreetly and never locks in on any one group or individual too long”, he says, they can capture a great wealth of human behaviour at the water’s edge – since “people are uninhibited [there]; they interact more personally than anywhere else in the public domain.” The color is also special in this setting “probably because of reflection from the sand, which is usually white.” Manos’ books American Color and American Color 2 are object-lessons in the pursuit of vivid color and its flipside: tar-dense shadow.