Early during Quarantine I started thinking about taking photographs of the lillies from just under the surface. I researched for underwater cases for both my phone and camera began in May. Paralyzed by too much information I still had not pulled the trigger to make the purchase in July. My son Griffin always the optimist and supporter of all my daring creative adventures insisted - “just do it, your phone can handle it”, he would insisted.(Griffin also pushes me to Make art that makes people uncomfortable.) It turn out if you take a lot of pond photos at some point you will drop your phone in the pond. And then you go with it. I fell in love with the underworld. Mean while - Our big fish started acting bizarre they were not coming to the surface when I walked up to the edge. In fact they disappeared to the the deep end. In 15 years of pond observations this is a new occurrence. Normally they come to the top and greet me in the feeding corner at the sound of my garage door. I keep the fish food in the garage. Curtis and I discussed many reasons for the change in behavior. It turns out a night heron was hunting them from our roof or it could have been the red shoulder hawks that spent the summer in our trees. Anyway I am wondering what do the fish see that is scaring them. The power of gravity gave me permission to submerge my phone (accidents happen) - an unintended consequence of Covid 19. I started trying to angle my phone camera lens up to see what the fish see. I still don’t know what the fish see of the predatory human world, however my phone sees an interesting reflective image. I now have 4,000 pond images 🐝🐬🐟🐠🐌🐞🌺🌻💐🦋 and I am not complaining.
