{"id":4834,"date":"2010-04-01T00:55:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T07:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/?p=4834"},"modified":"2010-04-01T00:55:58","modified_gmt":"2010-04-01T07:55:58","slug":"the-wicked-abalone-divers-of-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/?p=4834","title":{"rendered":"The Wicked Abalone Divers of the West"},"content":{"rendered":"

No flying monkeys . . . just decked out in a witch’s neoprene and bearing abalone floats. These abalone divers on the Mendocino coast were part of a swarm — yes swarm — of divers, foraging in pools laid bare by the low tide. It was a super-low tide (-2.1)<\/a> receding just at dawn. We had no idea that sunrise would reveal hundreds upon hundreds of divers crawling over the tidal crevices. <\/p>\n

The folks we chatted with at the beach and in cafes had strong feelings about the very real issue of abalone poaching<\/a>. Abalone limits are largely self-policed, owing to shortage of enforcement. You can read more about the abalone poaching issue here<\/a> — and how it affects Mendocino County.<\/p>\n

The floats serve multiple purposes, carrying gear as divers scramble across the rocks, acting as flotation devices in dangerous waters, and holding the abalone after it’s been harvested. <\/p>\n

I can’t resist an image that begs for allusions. So this is my vague tribute to L. Frank Baum<\/a> and Judy Garland.<\/p>\n

\"Abalone<\/a>

Abalone Divers in Mendocino County - \u00a9ingridtaylar<\/p><\/div>\n

The Photo:<\/b> Shot with my Olympus E-3 and Zuiko 70-300mm lens (140-600mm\/35mm equivalent). If you follow this blog, you know I shoot with that lens a lot. It’s my primary wildlife glass, short of owning a $5000 prime lens. And it has super macro capabilities. Of course, shooting with a telephoto tends to compress the subjects, which is what happened here. The divers were quite a distance from the rocks in front of them. I didn’t expose well for the white float. The camera was set to spot-metering for another shot and I just quickly turned to see these guys, metering halfway between the white and the black. Sometimes tricking the meter works well without any exposure compensation, but they were gone before I could shoot a backup with different settings.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No flying monkeys . . . just decked out in a witch’s neoprene and bearing abalone floats. These abalone divers on the Mendocino coast were part of a swarm — yes swarm — of divers, foraging in pools laid bare by the low tide.<\/p>\n

[see the full-size photo …]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}