Richard Mejía.

ALT A woman with a black bob and long dark red nails, seen in profile, lights the cigarette in her lips with a silver lighter, her collar turned up.

ALT A small woman in a long black coat stands on a dark pavement under a huge red wall, cupping a lighter flame to her cigarette.

ALT Seen from below, a woman in a long black coat with a lit cigarette snaps a silver lighter shut with long dark red nails, a red disc behind her head.

ALT Seen from behind, a woman with a bare back in black tights and stilettos stands while a leopard winds round her calves, its tail curled round her ankle.

ALT A leopard with its eyes shut rubs its cheek against a woman's legs in black tights and snakeskin stiletto boots, on a red background.

ALT A leopard, leaning its head against a woman's black-tighted leg under her resting hand, looks straight into the camera.

ALT Vermeer's Milkmaid calmly pours milk from her jug into a pint glass held out, without expression, by a metalhead in a blue headscarf and pearl earring.

ALT A man stretches a very long stick out towards the horizon so that his marshmallow sits right in the heart of the fireball. It looks like the most ordinary campfire evening, and he waits on it with a cook's patience.

ALT Hands in his pockets and looking somewhere else, the skeleton grinds his cigarette out under his shoe on a tiny red ringed planet, the way you'd put one out on the pavement. A whole world used for the end of a smoke.

ALT Close enough to see the rain on her lashes, she closes her eyes and gives herself to the storm. Wet red hair clings to her throat and bare skin, and the cold seems to be washing something off her.

ALT A woman with red hair turns her face up into a cold storm, eyes open and lips parted, as the rain comes down on her. Her hair and mouth are the only warm things in a world of blue and grey, and she has stopped trying to keep dry.

ALT She faces the storm and we stand behind her. Rain runs down her bare back through the dark red strands of her hair as she tips her head to the sky, alone with the weather.

ALT Seen from the sky itself, she looks straight up into the falling rain, steady and unsmiling. Around her the street shines black and wet. It is the storm's view of the one person who came out to meet it.

ALT At night a veiled woman kneels on the wet pavement before a cash machine set into the wall like an altar, hands pressed together. The white screen is the only light, falling on her face like grace. The bills rise out of the slot to meet her like the host.

ALT A woman bends into her own shielding hand while the wind drags her hair across her face. The tiny flame she guards is the only warm thing in the whole night, and all of her attention goes to keeping it alive.

ALT Down an empty road in the rain, the only light for miles is a man walking away on fire. His glow runs back along the wet asphalt like a path he leaves behind.

ALT A wave as tall as a building rises in front of one small woman sitting at the end of a diving board. She sits up straight and watches it. The whole ocean comes at her, and she stays where she is.

ALT A woman sits in half a boat. The other half is in the jaws of a shark going back under the waves, and she has not yet put down her cup. The worst has already happened, and her manners are untouched.