By the Water is a meditation on the carefree days of summer. Several years ago, I began spending part of each summer traveling to the coast of Brittany to document the lives of French families as they vacationed in various seaside towns. The beach scenes there spoke of another era, with seaside picnics and striped cabanas dotting the beaches. My goal was to capture that special combination of energy, humor and interaction that occurs around water, and use it to show intimacy among families, friends and lovers. I have expanded the project to include people frolicking at diverse shorelines from France to the United States, Dinard to Block Island, Rhode Island, where more than a 1000 college students congregated for the celebration of the 4th of July.
Sherrie Nickol
