Hebe's Pictures

We went walking this morning along the rocky coastline just to the west of our house, with our two grandchildren as part of the company.  The younger of the two had been lent a camera, a Panasonic Lumix fz7, to see how she got on with it.

Our first stop was at one of the brackish pools at the back of the beach, where some water boatmen provided an interest.  Hebe wanted to take a picture which had the theme of 'reflections and shadows'.

Once on the foreshore, we visited what we told her was the only rock pool exposed at low tide which had sea urchins.  These are a devilishly tricky subject, partly from their habit of camouflaging themselves in weed and anything else they can pick up, and partly because they have to be photographed through the reflection of the water.

After that, she found sea urchins in almost all the pools we visited.

An even more tricky job was to capture this little fish.  And, yes, I couldn't see it either.

Further along the shore there's an outcrop of Jurassic limestones which are full of fossils.  This shark's tooth, some 130 million years old, is about 10mm long, a subject for the macro lens.

By this time the Diary was feeling it was time to give up any pretensions at being any good at photography.  If an eleven-year old can produce pictures like this one, of a sea anemone, on what was really a first try with a large digital camera, how can we, the old and wrinkled, hope to compete?