This monument, located at the tip of Manhattan in Battery Park, honors the thousands of merchant mariners who have died at sea in the course of American history. Created in 1991 by the artist Marisol Escobar, part of it features a bronze sculpture of a drowning man that is not only unsettlingly realistic, but dependent upon the ebb and flow of New York harbor’s tides. It is reaching upwards from the water, towards a helping hand extended from one of three other bronze figures stationed on a rescue boat overhead. I framed only the drowning man, his body wracked with tension and fear. Over time, the weather and seawater have coated the figure with a patina that further blends it to the sea. Will he live or die? The colors in my image make the body appear to be flayed – revealing raw flesh below its green copper skin. The rough texture of the stone base of the monument adds still another dimension of fear to the image, confining the figure within a claustrophobic space. The power of photographic illusion enhances the creative concept and brilliant execution of the sculptor, using incongruity to help express the terror of a drowning at sea.