The Ocean is the Koan

Photo by James Sturz

I’m contributing koan editor (whatever that means) for the travel site Fathom, where I sometimes compose and shoot captioned photo essays. Here’s one set underwater. Perhaps you’ll recognize the balloonfish (Diodon holocanthus) in it from this site’s contact page. It swam past me off the coast of Easter Island, in Bahia de Hanga Roa, when Moai and I were both wee boys. There’s also a coral-pocked cement moai in that piece—think of it as the ersatz real thing, but submerged at 70 feet. Back in pre-pandemic times, I answered Fathom’s contributor questionnaire.