La Jolla Wildlife (and Abstracts)

I am drawn to shoot landscapes and abstracts. There is minimal or fairly predictable or no movement in these scenes. These scenes are on the opposite end of the spectrum from shooting animals or my grandchildren. In these cases, movement can be frenetic and unpredictable. If my family were to characterize my photography in one word, it would be slow. If they used two words, they would be unbelievably slow. The Siegels are not known for their patience. For years, Pauline complained about how long it took me to take a photograph. If we were out, she would sincerely address strangers who were passing us on every kind of trail with heartfelt apologies. Without any training or experience, Nancy has adopted this important role. When we’re out for a hike, Nancy is thinking about exercise. To accomplish that end while I’m shooting, she walks briskly in large circles around my location while listening to show tunes and Jewish prayers sung in Hebrew on her headphones. She might have an entire playlist designated for unfulfilling exercise hikes with Sandy.

I would characterize my photography as thoughtful, precise, deliberate, and neurotic.

I enjoy photographing animals. It’s exciting to capture animals in the wild. I’m just not very good at it. Animals move a lot when they’re not resting or sleeping. Animals are a bit less interesting to shoot when they’re resting or sleeping. Animals move a lot and you have to work fast to capture them. After many years of focusing manually, I now rely almost exclusively on auto-focus. That helps. Everything else for me is a challenge. It doesn’t help that my long lens doesn’t have image stabilization. I purchased it when I first started photography classes and wasn’t ready to invest in an expensive lens. That purchase is now on my wish list.

Regardless of one’s intentions, if you are going to spend four days on the cliffs and beaches of La Jolla, you are going to be taking photographs of animals. They are ubiquitous, like the tourists with selfie sticks.

There are sea lions and seals in the water and resting on the rocks up and down the coast. They’ve taken over the children’s beach. They’ve adapted to the human presence and pretty much ignore people. There are signs all over telling people to stay away from them. There are lots of people who ignore the signs and have their photographs taken with these animals as a background – men, women and children. Some very small children. Do seals and sea lions have teeth? Just one more reminder that no one is going to be telling a good American what they can and can’t do! If I want to put my four-year-old in front of a giant sea lion, by golly, no one is going to tell me not to put my child’s life at risk. And, yes, we’re all going to get the COVID.

There are so many birds. Pelicans are everywhere.

There is a cliff where the cormorants are nesting. The males put on a great mating dance for the females that involves some wonderful wing work with spectacular blue feathers that appear on its neck. While it’s difficult for me to think like a female cormorant in heat, I was thoroughly impressed.

There are Egrets, Royal Tern and Sea Gulls all over the rocky cliffs and beaches.

I’m sure there is an amazing amount of sea life under the water. As I don’t swim where there are living things, I have no idea what’s under the surface. Pauline loved the water. What felt like mysterious and dangerous to me, was beauty and adventure for Pauline. Pauline learned to scuba dive and was certified after she became paralyzed from transverse myelitis. She felt freedom under water that her body didn’t give her on land and with gravity. When she went down there, I stayed up here, and enjoyed her experience vicariously.

I appreciate what I can see during low tides, like sea anemones.

What do all these creatures have in common? They eat fish. If you love the overwhelming smell of fish or fishy smelling excrement, this is the place for you. The smell of fish is everywhere and always. Nancy uses the word waft a lot when we’re in La Jolla. Fish bones cover the cormorant hillside.

If you blink really fast while looking at my wildlife photographs, you might conclude that these images are abstracts. Hey, they are abstracts … abstracts with animals. That’s what I see. That’s what inspires me. That’s my aesthetic. In this case, the subject matter is a bit out of the ordinary, but no less compelling. My compositions rely heavily on erosion, guano and nesting material. The birds make for some colorful contrast. The seals and sea lions are blobs on rocks with clumsy fins and whiskers. I know. Jungle Larry I’m not.

You might see massive amounts of bird poop. I see art. The patterns created by the most basic of biological functions is an abstract artist’s delight. So, what accounts for all this white crap everywhere? Well, lets ask the experts. According to Audubon:

Why is most of the bird poop we see white? The answer lies in the fact that birds, unlike mammals, don’t produce urine. Instead they excrete nitrogenous wastes in the form of uric acid, which emerges as a white paste. And uric acid doesn’t dissolve in water easily. Hence its ability to stick to your windshield like blobs of white plaster.

https://www.audubon.org/news/what-makes-bird-poop-white

Who knew that Audubon was so informative, witty and pragmatic? The blobs of white plaster fiercely stick to dirt and rocks with the same adhesion as glass. The guano resists the waves and tides for days and weeks at a time. If you can get your head out of the toilet for long enough, the designs are magnificent.

This one had it all ... the cormorants, the guano, the nesting material, the erosion. The textures are wild and wonderful.