Year In Pictures: A Fish Tale
Meet Dorothy. This is my daughter’s new fish. We’re on the second round of Dorothys already and we only just got the fish on Monday. Oh yeah, um, don’t tell my daughter that last part, OK?
To make this image, I put the fish bowl in front of the white wall to get rid of any distractions and added a vignette in Photoshop to bring your eye right into the bowl. I also popped the curves up a bit to ensure that the water was well illuminated and that the colors of the rocks and plants were vibrant.
Responses and Conversations
First thing we learned about owning fish, DO NOT USE BLEACH to clean the tank.
Comment by John Koontz on September 25th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Oh my gosh, John. Hilarious! Also, don’t just dump the fish in tap water. Chris learned that one the hard way. But now, sadly, it looks like we’ll be on our THIRD Dorothy for the week. She just went to fishy heaven again tonight, so I’ve gotta go grab a quick replacement tomorrow before S catches on. We’re going all out for a Beta fish this time because I hear those are supposed to last up to 2 years. (”Look, Dorothy grew up!”)
I can’t be buying goldfish 3 times a week for the rest of my daughter’s childhood. Even at only 12 cents a pop, it still gets old fast!
Comment by Amy Frazier on September 25th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I’m a murderer… sniff. Someday, when the girl can read, she’ll realize I killed her fish and hopefully she’ll forgive me.
Comment by Christopher Frazier on September 25th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Betas are good choices for stagnant water systems. Goldfish, which can live for many years, really need a tank that is being filtered and oxygenated. Once you figure out how to cycle a tank, fish are pretty darn easy. You can pick up an el cheapo tank w/ filter for less than $30 from many pet stores, which will keep a goldfish alive a lot longer than a bowl. No more than 1″ of fish for each gallon of water.
I was running to the pet store about twice a month replacing up to three fish at a time before I took the time to figure out how to actually keep fish alive. Now we’re going on 4 months with no deaths! This is a photography site, but maybe I should write a post on fish! LOL
Comment by John Koontz on September 26th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Ha – John, that is so great! I’m glad you guys figured out the ins and outs of raising fish. We almost went down the filtered fish tank road, but we were just not ready to commit, ya know? I mean, it’s one thing to have Grammy buy S a fish and pop it in a bowl. It’s quite another thing to buy the aquarium and become fish people! We did, however, lose yet another Dorothy this week (yes, that makes 3!), so we picked up a Beta this time. It was pretty tricky finding one that looked remotely like a goldfish. My daughter might only be 3, but she’s not blind. She knew what her fish looked like and wanted that one back when we went to “the doctor” to pick her up. Luckily, we found a pretty low-key female Beta that was close enough. Here’s hoping this one lasts!
Comment by Amy Frazier on September 28th, 2008 at 10:16 pm