This wasn’t really planned – I didn’t have a New Year’s resolution to make photos on the 1st of January. Our friend Detlev was visiting though, and had brought his camera, so we decided to head to the coast, just to get out a little bit and see what would happen – and the sunset was quite decent I’d say.

We went to “my” tide pools of Tabletop Reef of course. It’s the nearest and the tide pools are a nice subject to photograph, whether the tide is low or high. On this particular evening the place was quite busy of course and at first I scrambled a little bit to get a composition that wouldn’t include any people. The winter storms had washed away all the sand that covered most of the rocks in summer, exposing some neat rock “knobs” that I had not photographed in a compelling way yet. Because of all the people, I chose a bit of a tighter framing and waiting for a big enough wave that would wash over the rocks:

As the sun was setting, one kid that was playing a little bit outside of the above frame to the left was called back by his parents, and I was able to also frame these particular rocks a little bit wider in this photo, which turned into my favorite from the evening:

More and more people left, allowing me to move around a little more and look for other compositions. Another kid entered the frame and I like how he adds a sense of scale to the setting – exaggerated by the wide angle lens, of course:

Ultimately, I just had to return to the rocks that are only exposed in winter – waves washed over them more frequently now (the tide was coming in) and despite having my tripod positioned in wet and soft sand, I managed to get a sharp photo as the water from a wave that had washed over the tide pools was flowing back out like a small river – even though the best color in the clouds had already faded at this point, I like the photo because it captures something that is otherwise hidden and buried under sand (or water).

All in all, not a bad start to my photographic new year! :-)