Fitzgerald Marine Reserve 12/10/04

This was the first of three consecutive minus tide days during magic hour. If there is a time to shoot an ocean shots, this is it. The tide on this day was minus 1.2 feet at 3:12 p.m. Saturday was minus 1.7 feet at 4:20 and Sunday is minus 1.9 feet at 4:52 p.m.

This is a very scenic location with ocean bluffs and a large tide pool, but it seems to be devoid of tide pool life despite being in a marine reserve. I’d been here during a low tide twice previously and I can count the number of sea stars that I’ve seen on one hand.

I spoke to a ranger on the phone a few months ago and they clued me in to why that is. One theory is because people insist on picking up and touching everything that moves. This was not surprising to me because as a former aquarium naturalist, I would constantly have to warn guests not to pick up sea stars. The reason is that the sea stars have suction cups on the bottom and those is what they use to move and eat with. If you’ve ever tried picking one up yourself you might have noticed sometimes they are hard to get off of a rock. That is why. Once we start picking them up, suctions break off and they are unable to hold themselves down and eventually get washed to sea or eaten.

Personally I don’t touch anything and try to avoid stepping on any living creatures including mussels. I especially don’t step in shallow pools of water. Ironically, I saw a scientist stepping in the pools with rubber boots while taking wildlife surveys.



Being a Friday afternoon, there was a high school group there digging through the pools picking everything up in sight. They cleared out eventually as the sun was setting, so I had the place to myself to shoot. The conditions appeared ripe for a nice light, but it never materialized. My guess is that the clouds weren’t high enough to catch alpenglow and the air was “too clean” on this day to color the light.



What to bring: 1. all the Graduated ND filters that you have for the low tide because the tide pools are a lot darker than the sky. Also because there’s a limitless amount of compositions you can make during low tide.

2. Polarizer. The wet exposed tide pools reflect a lot of light, which ruins your colors and overexposes everything. If you want to see the colors of your subjects, use the polarizer in a situation like this.

3. Hiking boots. It is slippery out there. I only have running shoes so I have to gingerly walk out there. This is a place where you don’t want to have an adventure.

I’m curious as to what Point Reyes looks like during low tide. In Galen Rowell’s Bay Area Wild book there’s an image of octopus and sea stars during low tide at Pt. Reyes. There’s more life in that one image than I’ve seen in my trips to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.