Acua by Maureen Mayne-Nicholls

Captured as part of an immersive research project for a video-dance piece, this photograph explores the fluid relationship between movement and water. Over two months, the photographer and a dancer collaborated across diverse aquatic environments—from swimming pools to rivers and the sea—to embrace a process of pure creative flow. By submerging themselves in these natural and controlled settings, they allowed their imaginations to dictate the visual narrative. The resulting image is award-worthy for its ethereal quality and the raw, intimate connection it portrays between the human form and the transformative power of water, capturing a fleeting moment of artistic synthesis.