Photograph and words by GREG WILLIAMS

Greg Williams takes pause to consider the bigger picture on images seen small on his social media. This issue: Willem Dafoe at the Venice Film Festival in 2018.

I shot this picture of Willem Dafoe at the Venice Film Festival. I had a very short amount of time with him. We were in this hotel courtyard, which was very pretty but it didn’t really offer anything. Willem said, “I get it. It all looks great, but it’s not what you want.” So we looked for something to do. And there was this little fountain and he said, “Oh, I can play with this.” So he started playing with the water, flicking the water up at me. He completely soaked my trousers, so at the end of it I looked like I’d peed myself!

But anyway, he’s throwing this water up in the air, he probably did it 20 times, and this is the one picture that by far outshone all the others. There’s this beautiful curve where the drops of water frame his face so perfectly. I focused on him, so the drops of water are out of focus. Really, he gave me this photo. He knew exactly what he was doing, and we waited for this happy accident.

Leica Q, 1/1000 sec, f/2.5, 1600 ISO, 28mm