I find this salmon image haunting my dreams. It keeps me awake at night. It’s got me thinking about death, and life, and the inextricable relationship between the two. It makes me ask myself: Is it only the inevitability of death that makes our short lives seem so precious? And I think the answer is “yes.”

This salmon is just one small player in the grand cycle of life. But its floating body caught Corey Arnold’s eye, and now it’s caught mine. It is beautiful in its awfulness. It is raw and mesmerizing. It forces me to look closer, holds my gaze, and then stays with me long after I look away.

And it’s just one image in Arnold’s new body of