On December 26, 2004, Deborah Garlick was photographing the island of Phi Phi, in Thailand, when the deadliest tsunami of the century struck her. Her body was found four months later and repatriated to Great Britain. It seemed there was nothing left to find.
Eleven months after the tragedy, Thai authorities recovered the roll of film from her camera. Against all logic, the film had survived the flooding intact. The images showed Deborah walking around the island, enjoying the sun, unaware of what was approaching. They were her final hours alive, recorded frame by frame.
Her mother, Margaret Garlick, traveled to Thailand with those photos in hand. She used them as a map to retrace exactly the same route her daughter had followed that day: the same streets, the same angles, the same landscapes. She saw with her own eyes the last thing Debbie saw before the water arrived. An act of love as precise as it was disturbing, on the exact boundary between grief and obsession.