Tahiti, circa 1910
by Lucien Gauthier

This image, taken by the French photographer Lucien Gauthier of the largest and most majestic waterfall in the Polynesian archipelago (located in the South Pacific), perfectly illustrates the Edenic archetype these islands represent. As a way of emphasizing this point, Gautier has hidden, among the giant ferns in the foreground, a Tahitian who appears to be discovering the spectacle of the falls at the same time as the viewer.