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About This Project

Underwater view of a tide pool 

I started taking photos about fifteen years ago in high school to supplement a class project on the Point Reyes National Seashore in northern California. Prior to our research trip there, my dad sent me out into the local hills to practice with his old manual Pentax and I discovered that I love to take pictures of nature. Eventually, I began to wonder how I could put photos of nature to work in the conservation effort. I've spent the past year at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography studying an interdisciplinary approach to marine conservation. It turns out that effective communication with people often requires a visual element and with this project, I hope to contribute inspiration, education and awareness on behalf of the intertidal organisms in La Jolla. I took on photo-documenting the biodiversity at Bird Rock and promoting awareness of human impact through the creation of a website as my Capstone Independent Study project for the completion of a Master’s of Advanced Studies in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. For more information about this degree offered by UCSD at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, click here. 

Read on to find out how this project came to be:

• About the author/photographer
• Taking the photos 
• Useful links
• Acknowledgments
• References

 

About the author/photographerSelf-portrait in the surf grass

After graduating from Scripps College in Claremont, California, I took my biology degree into the mountains north of Los Angeles to teach outdoor education to middle school students.  Two years later, I left the mountains for Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles county to work for the Catalina Environmental Leadership Program.  During my six years there, I fell in love with ecosystems and their interconnectedness and lessons of sustainability.  I also had the opportunity to photograph hundreds of plant species, members of the kelp forest ecosystem and many critters in between.  A desire to focus on marine conservation brought me to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2007.  With my degree and past experience, I hope to continue in the field of outreach and education. 

Questions, comments or corrections can be directed to me at jage77@aol.com.  Access to full size, high-resolution images may be available for education or non-profit purposes.

Thank you for visiting this site and doing your part to lessen our collective impact in the intertidal zone,

J.J. Newman
M.A.S., Marine Biodiversity & Conservation
June 2008

 

Taking the Photos

Preliminary work on the Capstone began in January with the intertidal photography spanning twelve visits to Bird Rock between February 16th and May 12th, 2008. I would spend a few hours around low tide wandering among the tide pools with my cameras.
 

Canon SD1000 cameraThe majority of the photos of marine animals and algae were taken underwater with a Canon SD1000 point-and-shoot in the matched underwater housing. Many manufacturers of small digital cameras are now making underwater housings and I highly recommend the investment for anyone who spends time on or in the water. The housing is easy to use and maintain and the combination of camera and housing is a powerful tool for learning and documenting. On several occasions, upon loading the pictures onto my computer, I saw detail for the first time in an organism that I had seen a hundred times before on visits to tide pools or in the kelp forest. Capturing the freeze-frame of a small animal and then seeing it enlarged truly reveals the details you might otherwise only read about. 

Microscope-camera Set-upSpeaking of small details, the photos of the mini invertebrates hidden in the turf algae were taken in a lab with a digital camera attached to a dissecting microscope.  I went to Bird Rock in the morning at low tide and scraped a small three-inch by three-inch patch of turf algae into a container with seawater.  I would then spend a few hours sorting the small animals out of the matrix of algae and taking their photos before returning them to Bird Rock.

Canon 20D SLRA Canon 20D SLR was used for the remaining above-water pictures including some algae and marine animals (primary lens: Canon compact-macro EF 50mm).  It was also used to photograph the birds (lens: Canon zoom EF 100-400mm).

All of the photos that appear on the pages of this website were taken by me at Bird Rock in La Jolla, California, or of organisms collected there.

 

 

Useful Links

Consult the fishing and collecting regulations upheld by the California Department of Fish and Game: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/pdfs/oceanfish2008.pdf

Find low tide times and levels throughout California: http://www.saltwatertides.com/dynamic.dir/californiasites.html or
http://tbone.biol.sc.edu/tide/index.html

 
Watch an animation and find a basic explanation of what causes the tides on Earth: http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/motion/tides1.htm

Read a thorough explanation of what causes the tides:
http://www.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/restles1.html

Read more about how our environmental baselines shift over time and why we should record past and present baselines of biodiversity: http://www.shiftingbaselines.org/op_ed/index.html


Acknowledgments

Certainly, no student accomplishes a project such as this one without help. From the beginning of the process when ideas and inspiration dominate, through the middle when guidance and funding are needed, to the final weeks when feedback saves the details – thank you to Harim Cha, Russ Chapman, Penny Dockry, Lucina González, Jeremy Jackson, Greg Rouse, Kaustuv Roy, and Jane Weinzierl.
 

Funding for this website was provided, in part, by the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD.

References

For Organism Identification:
  • Abbott, I. A., and Hollenberg, G. J. 1976. Marine Algae of California. Stanford University Press.
  • Behrens, D.W.  1991.  Pacific Coast Nudibranchs.  Sea Challengers
  • Carlton, J.T. editor. 2007.  The Light and Smith Manual: Intertidal Invertebrates from Central California to Oregon.  University of California Press.
  • Connor, J. 1993. Seashore Life on Rocky Coasts. Monterey Bay Aquarium.
  • Gotshall, D.W. 1994. Guide to Marine Invertebrates: Alaska to Baja California. Sea Challengers
  • Jensen, G.C. 1995. Pacific Coast Crabs and Shrimps. Sea Challengers.
    Press.
  • Reish, D. J. 1995. Marine Life of Southern California. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
  • Ricketts, E. F., Calvin, J., and Hedgpeth, J. W. 1985. Between Pacific Tides. Stanford University Press. 
  • Sibley, D. 2000.  The Sibley Guide to Birds.  Chanticleer Press.
From the Scientific Research Literature:
  • Addessi, L. 1994. Human disturbance and long-term changes on a rocky intertidal community. Ecological Applications 4(4): 786-797.
  • Alessa, L., Bennett, S.M., and Kliskey, A.D. 2003. Effects of knowledge, personal attribution and perception of ecosystem health on depreciative behaviors in the intertidal zone of Pacific Rim National Park and Reserve. Journal of Environmental Management 68: 207-218.
  • Brosnan, D.M. and Crumrine, L.L.. 1994. Effects of human trampling on marine rocky shore communities. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 177: 79-97.
  • Brown, P.J., and Taylor, R.B. 1999. Effects of trampling by humans on animals inhabiting coralline algal turf in the rocky intertidal. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 235: 45-53.
  • Castilla, J.C. 2000. Marine Ecosystems, Human Impacts on. In: Simon A. Levin, Editor(s)-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Elsevier, New York, 2000. pp 27-36.
  • Huff, T. M. 2006. Impacts of human trampling and periodic sand inundation on Southern California intertidal algal turf communities: Implications for conservation and management of rocky shores. Dissertation, University of California, San Diego.
  • Underwood, A.J., and Chapman, M.G. 2000. Intertidal Ecosystems. In: Simon A. Levin, Editor(s)-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Elsevier, New York. pp 485-500.
Zen Photo is the online software used to sort the photographs into galleries and is available for downloading at http://www.zenphoto.org/.

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