Description
LOCATION: Papua New Guinea
STORY BEHIND THE SHOT: Step a few feet back and you see a flower. Step a few feet closer and the horse-eye jacks (aka big-eye trevally) are swimming straight up at the camera, and hitting a glass ceiling, splitting into a phenomenal symmetrical bloom-like pattern. According to my friends Dr. Schmale and Dr. Faber from RASMS, this behavior is most likely the fish trying to move into a layer of water that is warmer, less dense, different pH, or chemically different in some way, likely as a part of a spawning session, which has not been recorded in this species. And I think it’s great how they see the beauty from a behavioral/scientific perspective, and we see equal beauty from purely aesthetic perspective. Combining both is one of the things I love the most in my career.
I started the dive 30 minutes before sunrise, and this behavior among the jacks (Caranx latus) had been repeating since the very beginning. In a school shaped like a river, they would swim downward out of scuba range, and then head back upwards to ~130′ deep where this shot was taken. When they’d hit that glass ceiling, they’d split apart, and reform the river heading downwards again. By seeing this pattern over and over, I positioned myself just above where I thought they’d split, and shot straight downwards. The resulting shape of the river of fish splitting on the glass ceiling, which perhaps resembles looking at the top of a mushroom cloud, reminded me of a daisy viewed from above.
For a similar feel and color palette, check out The Ancient Wharf, and ReefDance, both of which also feature large schools of fish.
TO PURCHASE BLOOM AS A FINE ART PRINT ON ALUMINUM: Bloom works best when kept in it’s original height to width ratio of 3:2. And while it’s normally displayed as a vertical photo, we have had clients hang it rotated 90-degrees as a horizontal (but if you want it as a horizontal, be sure to specify that in the order notes so Gug signs & numbers in in the correct location, and we include hanging hardware for the correct orientation. Purchase it online here in standard vertical art sizes, or contact our interior design team to inquire about a horizontal or custom sizing.