Krisztina Scheeff

Galapagos Islands and mainland Ecuador

August 10, 2023 @ 7pm PDT

Galapagos Islands and mainland Ecuador offer incredible opportunities for natural encounters, whether you are a photographer or not. Through the lens and stories of award-winning photographer Krisztina Scheeff embark on an up-close view of these wonderful wildlife rich places.

Krisztina will take you on a photographic journey of some of the special places on Galapagos Islands: Booby traffic jams, Galapagos Turtles, land iguanas as far as you can see, cute sea lions. Then embark to the Cloud and Rain forests of Ecuador to see all the different species of Hummingbirds and more! www.KSNaturePhotography.com

Register for the Zoom meeting at https://tinyurl.com/SCCC-KScheeff

The Ocean’s Cradle of Life

With carefully timed visits, we may explore tide pools that have been before us all along, yet unseen. With a deeper understanding of them, we protect and enjoy their beauty.

by Alison Boyle

All text and photographs © Alison Boyle

Tide pools and their conservation

The shores of our oceans are interfaces of land and sea where life must exist in and out of water. This is the intertidal zone where only the well adapted survive. Twice a day as earth rotates around the sun and our moon rotates around earth, the water on our planet is pulled toward these celestial bodies producing high and low tides. In areas experiencing low tides, the water is pulled away from the shore exposing rocks and reefs.

The rocks are a natural buffer of erosion as they diffuse the power of the waves. Sea water gets trapped between the rocks, in their cracks and depressions. These pools provide marine life with habitat and nutrients they need to grow, thus serving as the ocean’s nursery. Migrating birds also benefit as they forage in these pools.

From a human perspective, tide pools are a beautiful place to connect with nature. Exploring tide pools is a full sensory experience. You can feel the warmth of the sun, the mist in the air, and gusts of wind. You will hear waves as they roll toward the shore and see plant- and animal- marine life you will find nowhere else. As you scan the rocks and pools, something catches your eye, like a flash of color or motion. Maybe it is a beautifully placed sea star in a bed of mussels, a colorful sea anemone with tentacles splayed like flower petals or a nudibranch using a branch of kelp as a path to find its next meal.

There are infinite locations to explore tide pools along our North American Pacific coast from California to Alaska. It would take a lifetime to explore them all. Each location may be suitable for certain marine life species based on wave strength, rock type, and sunlight.

Wave action oxygenates the water and brings microscopic plankton to the shore. We see evidence of plankton when we witness their bioluminescence, as oxygen in churning waves oxidizes luciferin found in their bodies.

Where wave action is strong you find species, like sea anemones and mussels, that are well adapted to rock attachment and require a frequent supply of plankton. Low wave action, as found in bays or coves, favor more delicate species, such as sand castle worms, who construct thin tubes of sand on the underside of shore-facing rocks.

Rock types include sandstone and claystone. It is easier for marine life to attach to sandstone because it is coarse. This is where you find the most species. It is much harder to attach to the finegrained and slippery claystone.

All rocks may release calcium, potassium, iron and phosphorus as they decompose. Marine life, like the Kellet’s whelk and the chestnut cowrie, need the calcium to produce their shells.

Sunlight varies during the day and dictates which species you will find. If the sun is strong, heating up the rock, marine life may find shade or hide under rocks to avoid dehydration. Cool overcast days will yield far greater opportunities to see life.

Industrial pollution has affected the life found in tide pools. Chemical runoff from roads and yards can wipe out all but the most resilient species.

If you’ve ever visited a tide pool below a golf course, you will notice a significant drop in marine life abundance and species diversity due to the heavy use of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer. The tide pools of Treasure Cove in Crystal Cove State Beach, below Pelican Hill Golf Club, and Rancho Palos Verdes Beach, below Trump National Golf Club have very little life. At other Palos Verdes locations like White Point where the land above the tide pools is a nature preserve, marine life is abundant.

Trash such as golf balls, fishing line, plastics, spark plugs (used as fishing line weights) can entangle or injure marine life. An oil or sewage spill in the ocean could kill all marine life where the pollutant drifted. Global warming will have a gradual effect on tide pools. As sea water encroaches on our shores, we will lose tide pools as erosion from overhanging cliffs swallows them. It will be interesting to see if and how they adapt to new shorelines.

Recent legislation gives hope that tide pools will be protected and recover. The Marine Life Protection Act, passed by the California Legislature in 1999, protects our marine natural heritage through Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and respective defined usages. MPAs allow all non-extractive uses like swimming, wading, boating, diving and surfing and restrict extractive activities.

There are three types of MPAs:

1. State Marine Reserves - no fishing or kelp harvesting, except for scientific purposes and with a permit in Southern California at Point

Conception, Point Dume, Laguna Beach, Matlahuayl (La Jolla), South La Jolla, and Cabrillo National Monument.

2. State Marine Parks - no commercial extraction in Southern California at Campus Point (UCSB), Goleta Slough, Point Vicente, Bolsa Chica Basin, Laguna Beach, Batiquitos Lagoon, San Elijo Lagoon, and Famosa Slough.

3. State Marine Conservation Areasrestriction of some types of commercial and/or recreational extraction. Marine Protected Areas are listed by region and each region has unique restrictions. To see all of them visit https://wildlife.ca.gov.

There is also the California Coastal National Monument (CCNM) established in 2000 and expanded in 2014 and 2017. It is administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to protect more than 20,000 rocks, islands, exposed reefs and pinnacles along our coast and six onshore public land units including Trinidad Head, Waluplh-Lighthouse Ranch, Lost Coast Headlands, Point Arena-Stornetta, CotoniCoast Dairies and Piedras Blancas. The hope is that these continue to be expanded and enforced as tide pools are important places that contribute to the health of the ocean and our planet.

Photographing tide pools

My interest in tide pools began in the mid1990s at Point Dume, in Malibu, at the same time that I was learning to use a camera. The excitement of discovering marine life and capturing it in a photograph was the spark that kindled my fire for both. Marine life, its beauty and behavior, and how the different species co-exist together is a source of endless fascination for me.

I research each new creature I photograph in order to better understand its role in the tide pool ecosystem. My goal is to reveal their true essence with a camera, much like a portrait photographer aims to do with people. As with any portrait, simplicity is key, but it is especially challenging in tide pools. Highlighting the subject without distracting elements is often impossible. I look for marine life in uncluttered areas and with pleasing rock(s) and plant life to frame it or provide a pleasing background.

Camera settings

Tide pool photography can be very difficult because of the rocky terrain, reflections on the water, the motion of water and subject, and the small size of the subject (often about the size of a coin).

Small subjects can be captured very nicely using a macro lens. Macro lenses enable focusing at a closer distance making subjects appear life-size and filling the frame. However, the closer the lens is to the subject, the smaller the depth of field you will have. To increase depth of field I use smaller apertures like f16 and f22. While small apertures may increase diffraction, it is a compromise I must accept. Alternative methods such as focus stacking with images taken at f5.6 and f8 are rarely successful with a moving subject. If the lens is parallel with the entire face of the subject, the whole subject has a better chance of being in focus.

Location of the subject can make or break the final composition. Subjects in shallow areas of a pool tend to be more successful as there will be more light and fewer particles between the lens and the subject. Subjects above water need to be stationary and then focus stacking may work.

Dealing with reflections

Reflections can obscure subjects under water. Removing them makes the colors in the scene richer. To remove reflections on the water, I carry a collapsible sun blocker. The sun blocker is black and opaque. It casts a shadow over my subject removing reflections.

While a sun blocker removes reflections, it also requires a longer shutter speed. Shutter speed can be shortened by increasing the ISO setting on a digital camera. I try to make most images with ISO 100, and use higher ISOs only when the subject is moving. Another option for removing reflections is to use a polarizing filter but this limits compositions to only those directions that can achieve polarization.

I use a garbage disposal grabber to remove distracting elements from the scene. I prefer this device to using my hand as a hand may disturb marine life.

To make it more comfortable to kneel on rocks, I carry a closed-cell foam cushion to sit upon or place between my knees and the rock. Knee pads work well, too.

I wear rubber boots with good traction that minimize impact on the plants and animals. With thick wool socks, the boots are snug keeping my feet warm and dry.

Packing for an outing

When packing my gear for an outing, I always consult my checklist to decrease the chances of forgetting something important. My list includes the following items; camera bag, camera, quick release, tripod with ball head, remote shutter release with tether, macro lens, circular polarizer, batteries, memory cards, dust blower, lens cleaner, collapsible sun block, foam pad and/or knee pads, garbage disposal grabber, rubber boots, cotton bandanas, hat, gloves, windbreaker, sun block, wallet, cell phone, head lamp, empty trash bag, food and water.

I do not carry a flash but a ring flash or remote flashes could be part of your kit. Flashes are another level of difficulty that I choose not to employ as they require more power, add more weight and could generate reflections.

Many lenses made today include an image stabilizer, and I have one on my lens. I choose Kellet’s whelk with operculum not to use it because I prefer to use the tripod for stability. It may be old school but I like to have my hands free. Most of the time one hand is holding the sun blocker and the other is holding the remote shutter release. I could not hold these other items if I had the camera in my hands. The tripod allows me to be better at composing an image by giving me time to consider the entire scene and notice distracting elements.

Optional items to include may be a plastic rain cover or an underwater housing to protect the camera from water.

Research and resources

When deciding where to go, I do a lot of research first. The two books I use often are

Tidepools Southern California, by Linda E. Tway, Ph.D., and The Beachcomber’s Guide to Seashore Life of California, by J. Duane Sept.

When I’m close to home I have some favorite locations in Palos Verdes, Laguna Beach and Malibu. Locations that are farther from home need much more preplanning to make the most of my time. I search the internet to view pictures of a potential site. Multiple websites favorably mentioning the same location is a good indication that it could be a good place to visit.

Every location has pros and cons. Some require long hikes to reach them. Some have visitation restrictions – like Cabrillo National Monument. This is an excellent location in

San Diego but docents make sure you are off the monument by 4:30pm every day. The closing time shortens your time to explore and is well before sunset. Some tide pools are very difficult to walk through. Some are very popular. If the location has a large area to explore, I often need to visit the area multiple times until I learn where to find the marine life. I am also paying attention to the news for oil spills and other events that may affect the location. I usually have a backup plan.

The best time of year to visit tide pools in California is in the winter, from November through March. This is when the tides are lowest during daylight hours. I consult saltwatertides.com to find out when the tides will be at their lowest and the exact time by location.

Once that has been established, I plan to arrive two hours before the lowest tide and stay two hours afterward. I allow more time if there will be a long hike to reach the tide pools.

Restroom visits are also an important consideration. If there are no restrooms, you need to stop drinking, use a restroom in town and then go to the planned location. It may be 4-5 hours before you have access to a restroom again. It is an all-day affair when you consider the transportation time, walking time, time spent in the tide pools and the return trip.

Over the past three decades I have developed a mindset for tide pools that I apply to all my photography outings. I try not to have expectations of what I’ll find. This frees my mind to discover what the location offers me on that day. I’m never in a hurry once I arrive. If I stop and observe an area, marine life often appears because of my stillness, or my stillness leads to a heightened awareness of the life around me.

As with wildlife photography, the odds of finding a subject increases when you move slowly, are respectful and don’t disturb the environment. Marine life is all too aware of our presence as we make our way through tide pools. They hide for protection, interrupting their natural activities.

Patience is always needed whether I’m waiting for marine life to pause or move to a more pleasing location, the wind to stop, or a surface bubble to move out of the way.

Tide pool photography can be very frustrating when things become difficult. When I am frustrated I take a quick break from photography. Sometimes it is best to find another subject. Not all marine life can be photographed. Recognizing your limitations and moving on will make the visit more enjoyable.

Closing thoughts

Tide pools are vulnerable places that need our respect and protection. I would like to see more protections applied and enforced so that marine life can thrive. They give us much wonder and awe in return. My hope is that you fall under their spell as I have. With preparation and an open mindset, a wonderful adventure awaits.