SEA ANEMONE TENTACLE

Actinaria

Beautiful or ominous? Perhaps both? The sinuous spiral of this sea anemone’s tentacles offered me the chance to compose an image that portrayed the fluid beauty and elemental forms expressed by all sea anemones. The photograph might equally be a gigantic modern sculpture, or perhaps a computer rendering of a detail created for a fantasy world. In fact, the sea anemone is a commonplace part of the fantastic—but very real—world under our seas, unseen by most but far older than any of our civilizations, indeed than our species itself.