William Austin-Lobley Photography

A boy dives into the flood shouting a football celebration. 

This image is from my first outing of 2024 with a camera. I was out with my wife at a few spots in the Nene Valley. We planned to go for a walk, but we underestimated recent rainfall and hadn’t clocked the river had burst its banks. 

As it turned out, neither had this boy. He and his friend – pictured in a candid street portrait I made of the two, Boys of the Flood – had attempted to cycle through the flood on their way home. They told me that they’d decided to try and bike through, but that their trousers had gotten wet. 

The boy pictured here had embraced this more than the other, as he repeatedly returned and threw himself into the flood waters while his friend sat on watching and laughing.