Hammer Trap—In Mono

With a bewitching eye and a dimpled, dangling toothy smile, this 10-foot female crocodile watches as Robert and his camera float past, luxuriating in a sandbar mud bath with her offspring in Everglades National Park. To get this rare croc-eye view, Robert had to drift toward the beach lying down over the edge of a flats fishing skiff, this perspective allowing the viewer to also make hypnotizing eye-contact. The contouring shadows of this monochrome print give an almost palpable texture to the crocodile’s scutes, her thick scales of bony deposits raised like bubbling armor. Notice the crabs dancing around this crocodile queen, working the food laden soil of her mud bath.