Overview
This is the complete layout of Brian Brake’s 'Monsoon' essay in Life magazine. As a sustained, poetic photo story, unsupported by descriptive text, its appearance in a photojournalism magazine was unusual. In fact, Life designer Bernard Quint said he initially expected to see staple photojournalism images of floods and dead bodies floating in the river. Instead, he saw ‘…the wrinkled old man, stunned by resignation, waiting for the rain. I…realised that “quiet Brian” was making me feel the sense of time; unending powerlessness and the cycle of mortality and rebirth.’