Pond Life

Pond Life

The Observer’s Book of Pond Life by John Clegg was a book I discovered as a child in a public library in Patchway, Bristol, around 1979. I kept borrowing and renewing it over long periods of time. The images it contained suggested a parallel world invisible to the one that surrounded me. Pictures of water beetles, water mites, and dragonflies struck a chord along with the more graphic images of diatoms and other single celled animals more abstract in appearance. It was an astonishing book for me and made me curious to know if my small garden pond was also teaming with such life. This led to a new obsession of spending hours peering into microscopes often whilst listening to my parent’s 7” records. As a kid exploring the vastness within a single drop of water was like travelling into space. The printed measuring rule in inches and centimetres on the back book cover has remained in my mind all these years later. Stephen Gill

Pond Life 
Facsimile of original 1956 publication with signed and numbered print  Cover photograph by Stephen Gill
Incl. signed and numbered individually worked print by Stephen Gill
Words by John Clegg
Published by Salon Verlag Illustrated throughout
128 pages
90 x 145 mm Printed on ProfiSilk, 100 gsm and Munken Cream, 100 gsm Hardback cloth with dust jacket Printed and bound at Bookfactory, Stadthagen
Edition of 100, signed and numbered Published in 2019 ISBN 978-3-89770-963-8