Rodney Campbell's Blog

Located at the southern end of Coogee beach, Ross Jones Memorial Pool is a man made ocean pool. It was built in 1947 and is located next to the Surf Life Saving Club. Waves from Coogee Beach spill over the concrete walls of the baths during high tide and rough seas.

I’d shot at Ross Jones Pool here in Coogee once before with the Focus group but my friend Gerry hadn’t been here before so we met up here early one morning for a shoot.

The clouds looked somewhat promising early on but the tide was crap (a mid tide and rising) – I reckon this place would be much better at either high tide (preferably) or maybe low tide with more rockage next to the pool exposed.

Complimentary

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm, 154 sec at f/9, ISO 100

Firstly – there’s this unspoken etiquette amongst landscape and seascape photographers. You don’t just go putting your tripod in front of other peoples setups and you make sure when you’re moving to new spots in the scene that you’re not getting in other peoples shots – ask first – it’s just plain polite…

This place must be cursed… the first time I was here I was setup with half a dozen other photographers all in a row along one side just above the pool. We had cameras on tripods taking shots when a small film crew arrived with their RED camera and they just came down and without a word setup their tripod and stood literally directly in front of ours – I’m talking just 1m away right in front of my tripod. How rude is that…

Fast forward to today and this time it’s a photographer who arrived after us (by this time there were four togs here already shooting) and this guy just waltzes in and sets up his tripod right out in the middle of the scene. If you look in the horizontal shot below you see there’s this main pool which is filled with water and then on this side there’s a second pool (which is not because the tide is too low). He sets up right out in the middle of the second pool up near the front corner with his tripod up as tall as it can go and he stands there so he’s basically in everyones shot. He must have been in the zone because subtle jabs about being in peoples shots, etc had zero effect.

So the rest of us had to make do with trying to compose him out (or compose so I can clone him and his tripod out)… Sigh… some people are just thoughtless and rude…

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

The first shot above is from way up on the walkway above the beach and pool shooting down. I was looking for a simplified composition with just part of the unique telltale Ross Jones pool wall jutting into the corner of the frame. I think the colour version is too busy for what I was trying to achieve but still I found the colour effect was interesting. We have the deep blue of early twilight (it’s 5AM and about 40 minutes before sunrise) and at the bottom a mass of yellow toned scene tinged by the very strong flood lights which light the pool at night.

The following shot is from the walkway on the next level down and much closer to the level of the pool. It’s only 15 minutes later but the ambient has brightened significantly.

Golden Wall

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm, 62 sec at f/11, ISO 100

A couple minutes layer and the high powered pool spotlights have turned off and we’re left with just a little light pollution from the street – it’s Lee LittleStopper time…

Blue – Light and Dark

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm, 216 sec at f/8, ISO 100

and who can resist a little selfie action with those cool concrete blocks surrounding the Ross Jones pool

Me & Myself

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 31 mm, 1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

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