22-02-2026
First shoot at Coledale
Although I’ve driven past Coledale countless times, for some reason I had never considered stopping for photos until this morning. Arriving at Sharky Beach well before sunrise meant having to use a torch to traverse the extremely slippery rockshelf, luckily it was low tide so I wouldn’t have to contend with any waves on top of the slick surface. Initially I didn’t find much of interest, took a couple of failed images around the edge as I worked my way towards Coledale Pool, eventually I came across a little pool surrounded by a heap of Neptune’s Necklace which made for a nice starter image for this post.
Once I finally got to the pool I wanted to make the most of the small amount of colour in the sky, keeping my shutter slow and zooming in to do some panning shots with intentional camera movement (ICM). These can be very hit and miss but when they come off the results are stunning.
When I had gotten that out of my system I turned my attention to the pool. It’s always a fun little challenge to shoot somewhere new, especially if you haven’t seen many images from the location before. I spent a bit of time wandering around the edge of the pool before coming away with a couple of images I didn’t mind.
While I was shooting around the pool I noticed some nice collisions taking place between the waves that were rebounding after smashing off the edge of the rock shelf and the incoming waves. Only problem was the waves were very inconsistent, I put the long lens on anyway to see if I could get anything. In between waves I was taking in the scenery around the area and found myself drawn to the view of the mountains along the coast. In the far off distance the tops of the mountains were shrouded in fog and clouds. It was then I also noticed a person walking out onto a rockshelf further up the coast, I thought it would make a really nice minimalist shot
After leaving the pool to walk back across the rocks to the car, I came across a white faced heron which are commonly found across Australia almost anywhere near shallow water, fresh or salt they don’t care as long as it’s wet. Growing to around 60-70cm and weighing in at about 550 grams they are a good sized bird to practice photography on, especially in flight photos as they are quite slow to get going. I never really paid much attention to the birds around me until I started doing photography, they’re definitely an easy way to get into wildlife photography. It doesn’t hurt that we have some pretty spectacular birds downunder.
As always don’t forget to check out the rest of the
images from the morning in the gallery below
