Reading the Water is a high definition (HDCAM) experimental ‘home video’ and personal-poetic essay that mobilizes the coast of Maine – the sandbox of Vollmer’s youth and his marine biology and naturalist professor-photographer father’s area of expertise – as a metaphor for exploring the depths of masculine relationships and family ecosystem sustainability across three generations.  The videotape’s title employs the idea of “reading” the surface of water – akin to unpacking the meaning of a photograph – as a means to navigate what is below; it “reads” the water both in content and form and utilizes playfully reflexive editing techniques to unveil the complex and fragile dynamics of the family ecosystem vis-à-vis a behind-the-scene reveal of the videotapes construction.  Additionally, Vollmer harnesses on-screen text to incorporate hi (then) 3-year-old son’s well-expressed need for emotional presence form his biological ‘fathers’ – a strategy that also gives voice to the maker’s own buried, yet still present, need for his own dad.  These direct, yet disembodied, ‘spoken’ lines of toddler language allow one to consider the generational formation of self and a central documentary dilemma: how to navigate the slippery and problematic relationship between the documentarian as ‘author’ and the documentarian’s authorial use of the camera subject for self-portraiture – intended or not.