A Lost Towel

No one around. Just sun, sand, and something left behind.

The beach was empty when I passed through—early or late, hard to say—but this towel was there, alone, crumpled and vivid. Its colours refused to blend in: yellows, reds, a printed image of something once meaningful, now half-folded by the wind. It didn’t look forgotten. It looked abandoned.

What caught my eye more than the towel was what surrounded it: tyre marks, footprints, all criss-crossing paths layered into the sand. As if everyone passed by but no one stopped. It felt recent, but not urgent—like whoever left it didn’t mean to come back.

The shot came together quickly. Low angle light. Long shadows. Texture in the sand that photography lives for. But the scene lingered. That towel could have been dropped in a hurry, or laid down in hope. Either way, it’s now part of a different story—one about traces, departures, and objects that stay longer than their owners.

Sometimes the most human thing in a photo isn’t the person. It’s what they leave behind.