When Red Disappears began underwater, in the turbid green-grey coastal waters of Zeeland, where Elspeth Diederix photographed benthic flora and fauna rarely seen at close range. Working by artificial light, she recorded shells, sponges, seaweeds, anemones and other organisms whose colour formations emerge only when illuminated. The series extends her long engagement with botanical subjects in gardens and parks, but diving imposed different conditions: cold, murk and the physical effort of making pictures at depth. The images offer not so much a documentary record as an encounter with unexpected abundance.

Published by Fw:Books in 2019, the book is a hardcover of 88 pages, 23.5 by 33 centimetres, with text by Philip Ball and design by Hans Gremmen. Reviewers have singled out the production for its quality, and the volume was included in Best Dutch Photobooks 2019 and in several year-end selections. The sequence moves through colour and darkness without forcing a narrative, while Ball’s text provides a scientific and historical frame without displacing the photographs.

Diederix’s earlier attention to botanical subjects offers a useful way into these underwater pictures. The gardens here are unfamiliar, and the work of lighting them changes what becomes visible. Looking through the book means following that shift of attention: the ordinary associations of flowers and foliage give way to shells, sponges and other forms in the water, while colour remains a connecting thread. The result is a considered object, coherent in design and demanding in the best sense. Anyone building a shelf around contemporary Dutch photography or the photobook as a designed form will find this one worth the space.