Underwater Adventures: Goldfish Photo Gallery

Wow! I’m just blown away by the light and contrast in this photo set.

I always love this goldfish series but this time it was extra special! I know, I know, I always say that but...

it was yet another day that I was not feeling as mentally and physically strong as I would have liked so Jeremy said “let’s get out of the house and just shoot the goldfish series”.

That sounded incredible but the goldfish series is more complicated and difficult than any other series I do because of the skirt. I didn’t think of this until we were in the water.

We entered the ocean from shore through a hole in the reef wall. No Paddleboard or surf board to fall back on if I got tired or overwhelmed. We just went for it snd swam out as far as we safely could. I had to enter the water with my skirt in so I tucked it in my waistband as best I could put my goggles on and swam to meet Jeremy.

This pathway is a bit of a leap of faith with about 5tf of space to clear the reef wall covered in large spikey sea urchins. It was a little choppy so I just did my best to enter quickly in between sets of waves. Once in we went to work.

My job is to stay under as long as possible creating interesting shapes and movements and to try to embody a goldfish.

The only real issue is that I’m wearing a skirt that is sheer mesh longer than my legs. If I’m not incredibly careful my feet get twisted in the material, or as I’m doing backflips the material gets caught on my face or head. These are pretty dangerous scenarios that happen from time to time because we can’t control the elements all the time, no matter how hard we try for safety.

I suggest taking a surfboard or Paddleboard with. I always get a little uneasy when I don’t have something to jump onto to rest when needed, and it’s often needed. The ocean is incredible but exhausting and it’s easy to push it too far for that one shot.

The water was deep blue this day, I think it was the depth we were at also, the farther from shore the darker the water.

We didn’t see much unusual wildlife but heard tale of a 12 ft reef shark later that day after we left the beach. Wow! What if we could have caught a photo of that shark.... reef sharks are fairly docile so I wasn’t worried just excited to spot her in the water.

We often run into large wildlife lately. I’ve not experienced it so much in the past here in Rincon but over the last few months, we have had some incredible large predators at our shores. They have remained non-threatening, it just makes me curious as to why they are coming so close to the shore after all these years? I have been coming back-and-forth to the Caribbean and Rincon for the last five or six years regularly, almost every other month, I have never in that time experienced seeing large predators coming so close to the marinas and the shorelines. What does this mean? What’s happening in the ocean? Is this a good thing? Is this a negative thing? There are so many fishermen and surfers on the island talking about this right now and I have a feeling we will find out soon. Until then we will continue to shoot and try to capture form the water and we will be careful not to be invasive in their space. We will continue to observe, touch nothing, mane art and collect data on what’s happening down there.

The best advice I ever got from depression anxiety and bipolar disorder is exercise. I am unable to take the prescribed pharmaceutical medications because they increased my suicidal ideation so I am left to figure out how I self medicate in the best way. Marijuana has been incredibly helpful. THC seems to be my wonder drug. Psychedelics help. Other than that, getting in the water… It seems to be the only thing to replicate a hug from my mom.

Underwater Burlesque is changing my life. It’s changing the face of my bipolar disorder. I’ve always told my partner Jeremy and my therapist that when I’m feeling my worst, I feel like I am alone in the middle of the ocean with nothing and no one in site to help. I could be in a room full of people and I would feel alone, in the middle of the ocean with no one to help. Even though everybody wants to help, I wouldn’t be able to see it. These photos embbody that feeling for me. These photos say that it is possible for somebody like me somebody with this type of illness to feel such severe feelings of loneliness and depression and anxiety and still be able to come through it. Even if sometimes it’s not probable, it is possible. I know I’m not the only one who lives on the razors edge of that feeling on a regular basis so I know that there are some people out there who might appreciate these photo sets and what they represent.

It’s possible to find beauty even in our scariest thoughts. It helps me to take that feeling that dark heavy oppressive feeling and put a goldfish tail and beautiful light on that image. Thankfully it works more often than not.