Michael Arend Shoot Where You Are: Sunken Treasure

Sunken Treasure

When I was a kid I loved to play in the water, any water, the sink, the tub, the toilet, the garden hose. If it was water I would play with it. If it was a pond, a stream or a lake, even better. Fish, turtles, boats and bottles, anything that might float, sink or swim was interesting to me. I also liked TV shows and movies about the sea. The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau was one of my favorites. I also loved any kind of pirate movie, sailing ships and treasure that was the life for me when I was not dreaming about having my own pet dolphin like the boy in the TV show, Flipper. In the summers back then I was often in the water with fins, mask, and snorkel looking for anything interesting especially treasure. Lost rings, necklaces, and even a transistor radio that I tried in vain to revive were rewards of the hunt. My family was also involved in collecting stones, and fossils. We had a basement half full of stones and the various tools to cut shape and polish them, along with a kiln and the tools to mold rings. Often the stones we found came from the shores of lakes or as deep as we could wade or where I might snorkel. All of my life this habit of looking for cool, unique or out of the ordinary has been with me. I am not much of a collector for the sake of gathering up things. I guess that I am more of a hunter looking for things to create images with.

Recently I was hunting for these things along a stream called Mud Creek(It was not very muddy where I was at).

My original plan was to shoot the fall leaves floating down the stream and getting hung up on branches and things that were in the water. I wanted to to combine the movement of the leaves with other elements and some leaves that were not in motion. I made several images like this and while I was hunting for more I started to take a closer look at what was under the surface of the stream.

Suddenly a new combination of elements was before me, there was a landscape of leaves just below the surface looking almost as they would laying on the forest floor. But here the light was changed, filtered by the waters flow the colors and textures were different, subdued, muted, less crisp.

And here and there to my delight, were freshly fallen leaves adding their bright tones to the subtle composition below. Now “I” was Jacques Cousteau with my own undersea world, even if it was only a few

feet deep at best. So into the water I went with my waterproof hunting boots, sinking the legs of my tripod into the the sandy bottom of the stream. Shooting and hunting now, and happy with the new experience...until I was brought up short by a problem with my sub-sea equipment. My boot was leaking, not much but very cold! Now with the light failing and with one cold, wet, right foot I called a halt to the days' exploration and hiked back up to my vehicle, and from there to dinner.

Now I have had a chance to clean up the treasure that I found while playing in the water. The great thing about this type of treasure is that it can be shared and will enrich both you and I.