To get this shot of Jacob’s Well, photographer Erich Schlegel donned snorkeling gear and a weight belt to descend about 30 feet down the limestone entrance of the spring-fed swimming hole. He then pointed a wide-angle lens to the sky to catch the flare of noontime sun on the pool’s surface. Jacob’s Well is the mouth of a 140-foot-deep underwater cavern that’s part of the Trinity Aquifer. The spring is the source of Cypress Creek, which joins the Blanco River in nearby Wimberley. “I like everything about this shot—the sun filtering through and hitting the walls of the shaft, all green with algae,” Schlegel says.
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From the July 2021 issue
