The Accidental Cover Shot That Captures a Family’s Flood of Memory
(This is the story behind the photograph, a glimpse into the moment, the process, and the vision that brought it to life.)
One photograph captured everything Nick Prideaux couldn’t explain.
It was taken during a short break, not part of the plan. There was wet lace, sunlight, and a quiet moment by the pool. That’s when he saw it: the flood, the memory, the emotion. This photo became the cover of Grace Land and the heart of the project.
Nick didn’t expect this image to mean so much.
He had been trying for days to find the right way to show what the flood meant to his family. He looked for waterfalls, planned fabric scenes, and still felt unsure. But this simple accident captured everything he was searching for. Now he sees it as the most honest image in the whole series.
The Pool and the Fabric: Nick Prideaux’s Accidental Masterpiece
It was supposed to be a quiet pause. A short break in the middle of a long shoot, at a restored monastery in the south of France. But that was when it happened: when Nick found the image that would become the heart of Grace Land.
This project was built around water. Flooding, memory, beauty, and loss. That theme guided everything. But as the shoot progressed, Nick faced a problem. How do you photograph a flood without a flood? How do you capture destruction in a way that feels soft, symbolic, and real?
“I think that the probably the hardest thing with the project was seeing as the key element was water and a flood. I thought, how can I, how can I recreate this?”
The location offered its own surprises: peaceful gardens, old stones, and even a nearby waterfall. Some scenes were shot there, and those images worked. But it was another moment, far from the rushing water, that delivered the most powerful visual.
“This shot with the pool, I think this became kind of like the halo image for me. This is… it’s the reason also why it’s the cover as well.”
The setup wasn’t planned. Lace fabric, soaked from an earlier scene, had been left to dry. During a break, Prideaux picked it up and threw it down by the pool, casually. That’s when the light struck it. Everything clicked.
“It was like a kind of like lightning bolt… the light just hit it perfectly and I was like, my god, like that’s the shot. Like that’s the water, that’s the flood… the symbology of the flood. This is it.”
He shot it on film, like the rest of the series. When the negatives came back, there was no doubt. This wasn’t just a good image. It was the image. The cover, the anchor, the emotional center.
“I was really struggling to try and find like, okay, how do I… we had fabric, we had these things… do we just go to the waterfall and I take really close-up photos of water? I don’t know. And then suddenly like this, this fabric, this was it.”
The final image shows a piece of lace, floating or fallen, glowing on the ground beside still water. It’s delicate and strange, like a memory that feels too beautiful to be true. To the artist, it holds more than aesthetics.
“To me it also encapsulates that theme of talking about the beautiful violence. To me it’s a really beautiful shot, it’s very dreamy… but to me, when I look at it, it is that violence, what it represents. It represents the flood and it represents all of the things that happened to my family.”
In that sense, the photo speaks in symbols. It is not literal, but it tells the truth. A truth that came quietly, in a moment between moments, when the camera was ready and the light showed the way.
