Flamingo kiss

The story behind the photo

Three greater flamingos in the shallows at Pont de Gau, in the Camargue, at the instant when the two outer birds lower their necks towards each other and draw, above the third, a shape everyone recognises. The heart is not a montage and not a trick of retouching. It is a coincidence of two necks and one shutter, and it lasted less than a second.

I framed it almost square, because the picture is symmetrical and a square defends symmetry better than a rectangle does. The three pairs of legs give the lower half its rhythm, the reflections extend that rhythm downwards, and the empty water around the group keeps the eye from wandering. The bird in the middle, entirely indifferent to the composition it completes, saves the image from being merely pretty.

The light is pale and diffused, which for flamingos is a gift. Hard sun turns their pink into a garish, artificial colour; soft light returns them to the shades they actually wear: cream, salmon and a deep red at the wing.

I spent a long time on the bank waiting for the group to arrange itself, without ever knowing what I was waiting for. That is the honest version of wildlife photography: not the pursuit of an image you have imagined, but the patience to still be there when something you could not have imagined happens.