"Cutting the Wake", Ronnie Spiegel Waterskiing in South Africa by Michael Joseph

Water Skier — Diagonal of Speed and Light

Photographer: Michael Joseph
Date: 1970s
Medium: Advertising / editorial photograph
Format: Postcard
Size: 154 × 154 mm

A suspended instant, poised at the boundary between speed and silence. The skier’s body stretches into a perfect diagonal, cutting the water like a blade as spray erupts into a graphic fan. Shot against the light, the figure becomes almost mythic — a dark silhouette cleaving brightness, motion distilled to its purest form.

Captured on film by Michael Joseph in the 1970s, the image combines technical virtuosity with striking visual force. Framed by the perforations of Kodak film, it preserves the material presence of analogue photography while revealing the precise moment when movement turns sculptural and adrenaline becomes aesthetic.

At once dynamic and meditative, the photograph speaks to an era fascinated by speed, control, and the beauty of the human body in motion — where action is not merely recorded, but transformed into form.

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