We have a 40-gallon fish tank on the eastern side of the living room.

We’ve had it for four or five years. It has become increasingly important to use as a meditation point or a spiritual presence, especially during the dark days – especially during the early days of the pandemic –  when I can sit quietly and by myself in the living room and look at it for a while. I’m working on exposure and depth of field with my Leica, and I thought it would be a good still-life experiment to see if I could capture the calming feeling of the tank lit up with an aquarium light in a darkened room.

With my other cameras, that would have been a tricky shot, especially with the Iphone. I could catch the light, but not the detail in the tank. With the camera set on autofocus, I pointed the camera at the tank and tapped the center of the tank in my viewfinder to tell the camera to make the tank the focal point of the photo.

The camera caught one or two of the larger tetras, if I re-set the aperture and got closer, it would catch more, but I especially like the way it captured the plants. I was on the other side of the living room, about 15 feet away.

I think the photo captured the feel of the tank in the room and explains why it is a good meditation point. We often just sit and look at the fish for a few minutes. This calmed me when I was very young, and I see it still contains me now. Maria also.  The camera captured the fish and the bottom feeders (right now, the tank most mostly small red tetras, snails, and bottom feeders.) Also, a few shrimp. The plants are all-natural. The Leica keeps showing me the things it can do.