Entries by Robert

Leafy Seadragons are extraordinary creatures and we are privileged to share our part of the world with them.

This little youngster is only about 10cm in length and at that size can range from bright orange to deep red making them quite spectacular.

Regardless of size or colour, getting to hang with a dragon is always special.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Hang'n With A Dragon' 1/100s f/7.1 ISO320 15mm

Alexius armed and ready with his new toy.

Today's Rapid Day dive was wonderful and the the visibility has mostly returned after two weeks of milky broth. Armed with his macro and close up lenes Alexius left nudibranchs and other critters now ordering sunglasses for next time.

Now all I need to do is convince him that you can do wide angle photography in South Australia, even photograph nudibranches.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Armed and Ready' 1/320s f/11 ISO320 15mm

In Cafe Assiette in the main street of Hahndorf there is a back room covered in messages.

There were a few posted notices asking patrons not to 'add' to their 'beautiful words'. I could not help be amused at the irony.

Looking and reading deeper most messages were frivolous, personal and light hearted and nothing like the messages out the back door...


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Someone Your'e Not' 1/50s f/2.8 ISO320 70mm

Cheap hanging baskets don't usually attract my attention but I liked the feel of these as they hung from the gutter at eye level the entire length of this Handorf main street shop.

The shop sold chocolate strawberries and you really needed to stoop if you wanted to peruse inside.

Hanging baskets have nothing to do with chocolate strawberries so what about the title. Well they are 'All in a Row'!


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Pretty Maids' 1/800s f/2.8 ISO320 200mm

I am not a cat person as such unless we are talking about big cats. I mean really big cats and Jaguars are one of my favorites!

While out hunting I encountered this beautiful big cat resting on the side of the road. Carefully I approached from down wind ever so cautious to avoid attention, took aim and made my shot.

It's always good to come home with a trophy from a successful hunt!


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Purrfection' 1/3200s f/2.8 ISO320 200mm

Henley Beach has put on its winter cloak with piles of dead seaweed washed ashore and piling up in massive dark drifts.

Much of the finer sand has been scoured away leaving a course shellgrit underfoot though most will not feel it through their winter shoes.

Soon enough there will be the unmistakable smell of rotting seaweed mixed with fresh salty air and rain.

The swimmers and sunbathers are gone and the beach is mostly deserted.

Winter is here and I like it!


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Winter Is Here' 1s f/16 ISO100 15mm

There's a certain time of the evening; long enough after sunset for the twinkle of street lights and and transmission towers; not yet late enough for the first stars to appear.

A time when silhouettes are backed by the fading blue hues of the day tinged with green, orange and grey.

Welcome to the twilight zone.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'The Twilight Zone' 10s f/14 ISO160 15mm

'Air Time' might seem an odd name for this image but it seemed appropriate as I come up for ,air so to speak, from my underwater images.

We are fortunate here in having the diversity of weather which helps in creating dramatic images. Sunsets are obvious of course but when ever there is heavy but patchy cloud and the sun low in the sky the light will be gorgeous and everything looks wonderful.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Air Time' 1/4000s f/11 ISO160 200mm

I spy with my little eye something that starts with 'e'.

It's really not that hard to guess it's looking right back at me.

Mosaic Leatherjacket, Eubalichthys mosaicus

Port Hughes Jetty, South Australia.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Eye Spy' 1/125s f/14 ISO320 100mm

Another first for me. Finally after years of diving I have finally found Veronica.

I called her Veronica as it is an anagram of Verconia verconis, her real name.

She has no common name as is the case with most of our beautifully weird and wonderful sea critters. Unless they are commercially significant or in the popular mind then creatures like Veronica never get a simple name, forever to be known only by some tongue twisting phrase of Latin.

Another wonderful find under Port Hughes Jetty, South Australia.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Veronica' 1/125s f/13 ISO320 100mm

Tucked away safe and sound in a previously owned razorfish shell is a cute little girl octopus.

I know she is female as just outside her protective hideout there are two very enthusiastic males battling it out to join her.

When all was done and the looser vanquished she did not however bow to the victor's octpusly prowess.

Instead she chose to stay in her cosy nook and make him wait.

If you have not seen the battle you can find it on Youtube, Octopus Love Triangle


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Octohideout' 1/125s f/13 ISO320 100mm

This little guy has me beat. At first I thought it was a spotted grubfish but after seeing the beautiful coloured markings I am not sure anymore.

Captured ( photographically speaking) under Port Hughes Jetty.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Curiousity' 1/125s f/14 ISO320 100mm

Filmed under Port Hughes Jetty, South Australia this amazing display of octopus mating behavior with one male defending his access to a female against another male's advances was an unexpected surprise.

I shared this extraordinary encounter with diving friends Alex Sutandio, Mike Rowlands and Robert Paton.

Sound thanks to 'Bensound' www.bensound.com

The trouble with photographing people is drawing attention to myself.

All eyes on me this time!


Photo: Robert Rath, 'All Eyes on Me' 1/60s f/2.8 ISO640 168mm

The moon is waxing again and soon will be full. The pattern repeats over and over but the sky is always different.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Lunar Layers' 1/25s f/4 ISO1600 200mm

I love what I do in the corporate world, expressing my creativity with solutions to problems painted in ones and zeros and control structures and and arcane languages.

I love what I do in my visual world painting with light and tones which I have gathered as images from my local environment.

I am lucky and grateful to be immersed in both.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Painted by the Light' 8s f/16 ISO200 15mm

Trapped behind a protective screen or a caged treasure?

Constrained indoors does not mean no photo opportunities. There's always something interesting to create with objects, light and imagination.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Caged Treasure' 0.4s f/22 ISO100 100mm

I called this image 'Reception' for no other reason than it is the main reception entry to Mount Lofty House where a few of us spent a very pleasant afternoon with local photographer Hilary Hann sharing insights into her images, her travels and her thoughts on the 'art' of photography.

I first noticed Hilary's work a couple of years ago and while not a big fan of wildlife photography, her images moved me with an other-worldliness feel. As if raised from the mundane to some mythical status it was easy to imagine I was looking at a landscape lost in time, remembered as something precious and perhaps even lost. In her work I felt feelings of awe, admiration, wonder and even loss and grief.

Hilary's work can be found at her website http://hilaryhann.com.au/ but nothing beats a real printed and framed image.

At the end of the afternoon I did what any self respecting photographer enthusiast would do... click


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Reception' 2s f/8 ISO160 15mm

This afternoon while photographing sunspots a favorite Pink Floyd song came to mind.

"While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun"


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Staring Straight Into The Shining Sun' 1/640s f/16 ISO100 400mm filter 400ND + Long pass hydrogen alpha

What can you do with a mobile phone and a marble? ... This!

If I told you the image conveyed the book cover of a collection of short stories by one of my favourite writers you might just be able to work it out.

The author's name appears across the top while the collection title can be seen in the center.

Sorry, toy box marbles were never really designed as optical devices. You might just have to use your imagination.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Marble Vision' 4s f/9 ISO100 100mm

A moment later I was wet, my camera was wet and my evening on the beach was over.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Salty Bathtime' 1s f/20 ISO100 15mm

The afternoon sunlight caught my germinating chili plants in the window sill and I just had to capture it!

It's silly of course. Light can't be captured but hopefully you get the same feeling I did.

Now looking forward to the hot fruits of these little beauties in the months ahead.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Hot New Life' 1/400s f/2.8 ISO100 100mm

The Short-Head Seahorse, Hippocampus breviceps, is one of the cutest seahorses in the sea and Edithburgh is great place to find and photograph them.

I almost never see them during the day but at night a bit of hunting will soon find them.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'I Sea a Horse' 1/100s f/14 ISO320 100mm

Always willing to pose for an image is Edithburgh's Gurnard Pearch.

When nothing else seems to want to stay in the frame;

when the hunt for a prettier subject is failing;

when the surge is making midwater images impossible;

there is always a gurnard perch, or three sitting on the sand patiently waiting for their photograph to be taken.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Photogenic' 1/100s f/14 ISO320 100mm + twin strobes

The world of macro marine photography is full of life and colours and action that many new divers simply swim on by.

However for photographers and those who take the time to look nudibranchs make wonderful subjects due to their diversity of colour and form.

This bulldozer of a sea slug, Ceratosoma brevicaudatum, is only 5cm in length but is quite imposing up front.

Not to be outdone however a tiny little amphipod has photobombed the scene and stolen the limelight.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Photo Bomb', 1/100s f/14 ISO320 100mm

I found this beautiful mineral specimen recently while exploring the historic Barossa Goldfields.

The most obvious thing about this mineral specimen is of course the gold but when I thought about it a little more I realised that symbolically the ironstone and quartz represented perhaps the real value.

Without iron the world would have been a very different place and without the silicon we may never had miraculous technologies that the microelectronics industry has created.

So what about the gold? Funnily enough gold is also a very important part of microelectronics and other industrial processes.

Put into perspective, this mineral specimen is a great symbol of our industrial, technological and aesthetic world.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Industrial Gemstone', 15s f/11 ISO100 200mm

Bright neon signage.

A deep blue starless sky.

Reds, greens and golden masonry.

No lights on.

The Stamford Grand Hotel in Glenelg almost looks abandoned but is really jumping at ground level.

Just goes to show a picture can hide as well as it can reveal.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'The Stamford Grand', 1/50s f/4 ISO1600 155mm

Sultana Point Lodge where we stay in Edithburgh has a long history from the early 1900s as a holiday boarding house to more recently being a beautifully renovated and cosy retreat for divers and non divers who just like get away for a while.

While relaxing one evening with cameras at hand my friend Gavin decided to photograph one of the living space decorations and when I chose to capture the very same image I was flatly told that I was not to post my image until he did.

So Gavin has now posted his version on his site, ‘What’s My Seen?’, and here is mine.

I love how two photographers standing in the same spot with the same gear in the same light will capture two different images.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Fishing For Shadows’, 10s f/22 ISO160 210mm

This bizarre looking sea sponge in the sea grass beds off Edithburgh Jetty reminds me of a a cross between a diseased heart and a human brain.

It really does look like something that has been recently extracted from an animal and dumped on the ocean floor.

Oddly enough this strange looking form is actually an animal after all and will have spent some part of its childhood free swimming in the sea until it chose its permanent home.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Sponge Bob' 1/160s f/7.1 ISO640 15mm

The last time I saw one of these critters was also on a post midnight night dive under Edithburgh Jetty a few months ago.

This time however the conditions were a little more inviting without the 15knot onshore winds. As always there was plenty to see and make the effort worthwhile.

Nudibranchs, also known as seaslugs, are fun to search out and photograph. They make ideal subjects (once found) as they tend to move quite slowly as they go about foraging for food.

This guys is called Doriopsilla carneola and it's not really glowing in the dark. As it has lifted up its front some light has hit its underside resulting in the luminous glow.

I like this image as the unusual pose has created the impression of a big pair of orange lips puckering for a kiss.


Photo: Robert Rath, 'Puckering Up' 1/100s f/14 ISO320 100mm