Keybo

I'm going to miss Keybo.  I didn't realize when I started this blog that he'd be gone so soon.  I'll cover more about his recent fatal woes in another post.  For now, I'll just tell you about who he was.

In 2003 we lost four fish after a devastating storm knocked out our power for 36 hours, and we didn't have any sort of backup power to keep the Buddha Pond pump running.

Dreamcicle was the only survivor, and she was looking awfully lonely.  So we waited a few weeks until it seemed that the worst of the violent Spring storms were over, and we traveled up to a local place called Ponds by David.  There we bought Keybo.

We named him Keybo because of his white color and black markings, which down along his spine reminded me of a piano keyboard.  Keybo was only about 6 inches or less in size, and he seemed pretty scared when he was first introduced into the pond.  Any chance he could get to hide, he would.  That didn't seem to change much as he got older, except that he became much too big to be able to successfully hide anywhere in the pond.  His final length was 17 and a fraction inches.  We'd had him almost exactly four years when he died.

Dreamcicle seemed to look after Keybo when he was smaller, and they appeared to remain good pals to the end, with Dreamcicle even appearing to look after him in his final days.  Later on in 2003 we also got Blue and Nabu, and all the fish appeared to happily co-exist in the pond with one another, and though we've gotten them all while they are small and a bit frightened, Keybo seemed to be the one that remained the most shy.  Whenever the other fish gathered and huddled together, Keybo would hide his eyes underneath him, like a child hides their eyes, thinking you cannot see them then.  Like all the other fish, however, we would seem the most brave at feeding time.  Sometimes when we'd walk up to the pond they sort of parade to the surface, one after another, popping their heads up to the surface with a big wide "feed me" open mouth.  Keybo would join in, but then once the food was thrown in the water he's sort of hold back on eating until we walked away from the pond.

I was able to catch this behavior on video in 2005, for a DVD I made for my nephew.  As for still images, it's often difficult to get decent pictures of fish in a pond with moving water.  Even small waves distort the fish like fun-house mirrors.  After I recently purchased my Pentax K10D, I found it particularly difficult to get good pictures of Keybo, because he would stay low, near the bottom of the pond, where the water color and waves just made it near impossible.  When he did come near the surface he would hang close to the fountain, where the water distrubance was the worst.

On June 14th I manage to find a good time of day to try shooting pictures of the fish.  The pond is usually in shade or dappled sunlight, but there was about a 30 minute window when some late afternoon sun shined right into the pond, giving it a golden color.  That was the day Dreamcicle nearly came right up and posed for me, but Keybo remained illusive, though I did manage to capture one decent image of him.  It was the least distorted, wave-wise, but he was deep enough in the water that he appeared yellow in color.  Also, the angle of light that afternoon was creating an interesting "swirly" effect on the surface of the water.  It reminded me a bit of Van Gough's brush strokes, so I went with that in Photoshop CS 3, and pumped it up for effect, and also played with the color noise to exaggerate it into somewhat of a Monet effect.  So that's the reason behind the name of the first image, above, Keybo Van Gounet.

On June 15th I returned to the pond at about the same time of day.  I got a little smarter that day and turned off the pump.  Sure, I know that seems obvious, but I do actually like the "action" effect of the moving water, even though it makes fish pictures more difficult.

Whenever I turn the pump off, the fish usually gather into a huddle down at one end of the pond.  Most often when I turn off the pump it is in preparation for a water change.  After years of doing this the fish seem to sort of anticipate what's coming next -- like a sump pump and/or hose into the water.

So they gathered as usual, including Keybo, who had been isolating himself from the others during his long ordeal of Spring maladies.  After a few minutes passed with the water still and me not doing anything put snapping pix, the fish finally began just swimming around and acting as they naturally do, and I was finally able to get some clear, undistorted pictures of Keybo.

I had no idea they would be the last pictures of him alive.

Updated 6/23/2007 at 4:21 PM: Updated desktop images to full sized versions.