The Green Moss of Turimetta

The moss at Turimetta Beach is a sight to see every winter and the colours and textures it creates are nothing short of phenomenal. I have been heading to Turimetta beach for almost 2 years now; the beach is wild and windy and when the surf kicks up there is so much water movement and power it is a sight to see. Unfortunately my luck at this beach hasnt been so great.. up until last month I hadn’t had a great sky at Turimetta.. ever! I went two weeks in a row (one by chance) and the skies came to play. I have yet to blog that morning yet but I will get to that soon.. this post is all about the moss.

On this fateful morning I actually had the idea of shooting a zig zag shaped crevice which is located off the end of North Narrabeen Ocean Pool. It is really only accessible at a lowish tide and even then sometimes you get sprayed from a larger set coming through. The problem.. like with most ocean pool’s in Sydney is the orange sulfur lights which are always on in the morning. So what you say? Well it has an ugly orange cast in all of your photos and really does ruin the white balance in shots. It is only as it gets lighter (or if you shoot B&W) that the effects the lights have becomes minimal and the true colours of the morning come out to play.

Any who on this morning and finally getting out to the Zig Zag formation I really just didnt like what I was seeing. I have seen it done well.. I have seen people frame it and disregarding the fact it looks like there is a stormwater drain outlet on the land side of the ‘zag’ but I just wasnt getting anything positive from it. So Dan rocked up and we decided to rock hop our way around to where Turimetta is. It is a true shame about the lights on that pool.. It has effected me at night before (when doing Star Trails) and the light just creeps out across the whole rock platform out from the ocean pool. One day .. one day the councils will replace them with white bulbs like they kind council who look after Bronte beach and have replaced the gloves with white ones there.

Upon heading around to Turimetta we were on the other side of a series of rocks which we normally set up (when accessing the headland from the normal side). After setting up and trying some longer exposures I decided to head over to a series of smaller rocks which the waves were crashing over/into. The tide was running out to low so unlike ‘usual’ I didnt have to constantly retreat back towards the beach. I found a rock that had this wonderful glow off the clear sky and setup. Bracketing shots to get a mixture of the glow on the rock, a well exposed sky and some good movement in the water as it approached the moss. I have spent sometime trying to capture the moss as well as some other people have. Normally it is on these great long rock platforms where you get down low .. but you need a great sky for that. This worked out well and has the added benefit of creating one of my favourite foreground features I have created yet. Ill keep going back.. I am positive one day the moons will align and give me a spectacular sunrise with the perfect tides and i’ll be the only one there to capture it.. but you can only achieve this by going back.

If you are interested in Turimetta and what it has to offer.. contact me and I can show you the ropes. Otherwise I am thinking this will be one of the first locations for the Seascape workshops I am looking to start in Summer 2011.

Till next time..