Beaches at Low Tide

The tides during this time of year are lower than usual in the Puget Sound, so a few friends and I went to Lincoln Park to wander along the beach and see what the receding tide would reveal.

What we found exceeded our expectations; we found sea stars and sunstars bigger than our hands, anemones and even sunstars all over the place under the pier. Most of spend most of our time doing macrophotography, zeroing on in the creatures that we normally can't get to because they're underwater. To get most of these shots, I used an on-camera flash fired into a reflector that one of my friends held for me. The resulting lighting was much softer than direct flash, and I was very pleased with the results.

The first shot is of an anemone submerged under around six inches of water. With a friend holding my reflector, I set up the camera on my big Gitzo tripod. I used my 105mm VR macro lens with a Nikon 2x teleconverter. One of my friends held the reflector for me, and I pretty much just aimed the flash into the reflector.

The 2nd and much creepier looking shot is of what we think is the breathing tube for a clam or oyster. It was gradually opening and closing, making the small mound of wet sand surrounding it look as it it were breathing. It was quite a sight. The setup was pretty much the same, except that this was above the waterline.

There are some more images from this trip on my Pbase site.