Winter days out west
Vancouver Island, British Columbia. World renowned for many things, but high on that list is the jaw dropping nature at practically every turn. Vancouver Island is a major tourist destination, and my family (being from Vancouver) has made a tradition of visiting parts of the island every year. This week we found ourselves traveling along the coast of the island to unwind after what has been a pretty chaotic winter. Of course, as always, I was incredibly excited for the photo opportunities we would be presented with in such a wild and rugged place. Tofino and Ucluelet are excellent places to spot a lot of marine wildlife, but as we’re a bit too early in the year for reliable sightings I came prepared with my macro lens.
Macro is actually what got me started in photography. Long before I became a wildlife photographer I was mostly interested in macro and abandoned buildings. I still love both of these subjects, but wildlife has been the predominant goal of my photography for the last few years. This winter I have been itching to get back into macro photography, and I figured this trip would be the perfect way to break back into it. Living in snow capped mountains means macro is difficult in winter. Subjects are few and far between, and working 7-3:30 means there is very little daylight to work with for the darker months of the year. The beaches of Clayoquot sound and the Pacific Rim National Park offer a stark contrast to our white out conditions at home, and I don’t need to dig under 4 feet of snow to find subjects!
Even something as unexpected as barnacle crusted mussels can be beautiful when you take the time to appreciate them. With the right lens and conditions the details really come out.
Tidepooling is one of my all-time favourite coastal activities. Every tide brings something new and exciting to watch, from hermit crabs to sea anemones and nudibranch, you really never know what you’ll find stuck in a tidepool. Come back a few hours later and that same tidepool could have an entirely new host of critters waiting to be discovered. I really wanted to photograph sea stars, but alas could find none. Previously I’ve seen hundreds of sea stars in different locations around the area. This is the first time I’ve found none. I did find a ton of garbage, but my girlfriend and I filled my backpack and our pockets every time we visited the beach. Unfortunately, plastic and waste will also be refreshed with every tide. As easy as it is to walk by and ignore, plastic is going to be a much more prominent feature on our beaches in years to come if changes aren’t made on a grander scale. It doesn’t take much effort, a few pieces of garbage off the beach whenever you visit makes a big change if a lot of people are doing this. Change starts on the macro level, remember.
A particularly stormy night churned up a peculiar find: a squid egg cluster. I’ve seen single egg sacs before, but this was entirely new to me.
Waking up and exploring the beach every day is such a thrill to me, especially when finds like this turn up. I’ve walked these beaches hundreds of times in my life but never seen an egg cluster. We actually got to see two, washed up beside each other. Naturally I got out my macro lens to capture some images of the strange mass up close. I find the beaches of Vancouver Island to be particularly primal and eldritch, so capturing close up images of something as strange as this was very exciting to me.
Look closely and observe the spheres inside the egg sacs, the actual eggs themselves. A cluster like this can have thousands of individual squid eggs, all eagerly anticipating the return to sea with the next tide.
Hopefully some of you can see the beauty in something like this, as strange and gelatinous as it is. Look beyond that and see life ready to enter the world anew! The beach is a place of primal beauty. Life started in the ocean and crawled it’s way onto land on these ancient places, the least we can do is keep it clean of human garbage. Next time you’re on the coast and looking for something to do, I urge you to try your hand at tidepooling. Bring a beer, a camera, a garbage bag, or just yourself and some curiosity. You really never know what you’ll find!
Until next time.
