There is something contradictory about lifeguards. They represent authority and serious responsibility but also good times, youth and summer. There are long periods of idleness interspersed with action and occasionally crisis. The serious gaze of the lifeguard in the foreground is echoed by the people behind him, while the lifeguard on the chair faces the other way as she blows a warning on her fluorescent orange whistle.

Original slide shot during the summer of 2002 with a tripod-mounted Sputnik with Provia 100P, exposure unrecorded.