Thoughtfactory’s Notebooks: The Littoral Zone

The macro picture below was made in the  early autumn of 2022 when an occasional  low tide made it   possible to walk with the poodles along the coastal rocks of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula in the  late afternoon.  It is a followup to the picture in  this post which was made around the same time.  

It was not often  in autumn that this kind of seaweed was left stranded on the rocks from the tide.  The rocks  are usually clean.

These coastal walks were micro ones that are similar in form to the micro bush  walks.  An hour's  duration, slow walking, concentrated seeing,  making photos. 

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From an early morning poodlewalk with Kayla along Esplanade Beach in Victor Harbor. 

I was walking along the beach from the mouth of the Inman River to the Granite Island causeway.   The new  concrete causeway is nearly finished.  

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Another seaweed form in low light:

It was made in mid-winter--in July-- when it was wet and stormy. 

I haven't been able to walk along the coastal rocks between Petrel Cove and Kings Beach this past week.  There have been huge swells, large  waves,   and very high tides in the late afternoon. There has been no access to the rocks on  the afternoon poodlewalks.   

It's a pity because Suzanne has been travelling around the Eyre Peninsula this last week and I have been walking the 2 standard poodles. The coastal rock walk  would have been ideal as the poodles are contained by the sea and cliffs and so there is no racing off chasing rabbits, foxes or kangaroos, which is what happens when we walk a back country road.  

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I've been going the archives of what I call  my macro photographs. 

The picture below was made  about the same time (circa 2019) as the images on this post on Thoughtfactory's photo blog and with the same macro camera equipment. It was the colours of the quartz that initially caught my eye. Then I saw the seaweed strand lying across the quartz vein. 

 I thought that this moment wouldn't last very long, as the coastal wind would quickly move the shape and the  line of the seaweed strand, then eventually  blow it off the quartz.  So I quickly made a photo. 

I was on a poodlewalk at the time,  and I was looking for some dried salt ponds among the granite rocks to photograph.  We would have   been walking in the  late afternoon.

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