This image of a cruise ship steaming its way out of Recife’s harbor uses black and white abstraction to stress the play of light and shadow on both the sea and in the sky. I built the image around six stacked layers of light and shadow – anchored by the reflection in the lower right hand corner. The silhouetted barrier reef that gives the town its name (Recife means reef) comes next, separating the harbor from the ocean itself. The dark expanse of the sea leads the eye to the distant ship, its stack lifting a plume of smoke into the clouds overhead. The sun again reflects on water just ahead of the ship, leading it into its journey. The brightest light in the photograph is the sun itself at the top of the image, echoing the reflections below. Using backlighting to make this image makes color redundant. The scene works best in its simplest form – a black and white abstraction.