rock pool

Photographs from the Emerald City

This story began as an escape from the north (cold, grey, raining) to the south (sunny, warm, eucalyptic). From stygian London to hedonistic Sydney, my home town. Living away for a long time makes everything look a little bit different. Brighter.

There are 34 saltwater rock pools along the beach suburbs of Sydney, facing the immense Pacific Ocean, and often cut into the beautiful, timeless sandstone the city is built on.

People come down to the ocean pools (and beaches) to swim at dawn, to meditate, to heal their wounds, to recover from hangovers, to save and be saved. To escape the summer heat, and to shiver when the weather turns cold.

I am here for two months and I want to keep taking pictures, and to push on with an ambition to learn more about film. In this case, by shooting enough rolls of 35mm Portra 400 to keep Kodak ticking over. I now think this film was invented for rock pools. I went to the beach to look for good sandstone, weathered by the sea and wind and streaked with yellows, ochres and greys. I settled on the pools instead, and often at sunrise with the regular swimmers. There are backpackers, martial artists, retirees, tradesmen, doctors, lawyers, parolees, merrymakers and influencers. The water in the ocean pools is usually still and safe, even when the surf is rough, so perfect for children. And the water swirling around the pools is home to all kinds of sea life. Crabs scuttle past the toes of the swimmers. There are more species of fish in the nearby harbour than the entire Mediterranean. There is no other city like the beautiful, sub-tropical and crazy Sydney.

Most Australians live on the edge of this island continent, but not everybody has easy access to the ocean pools. The city of Sydney sprawls 80 kilometres inland from the sea. There are nearly 5.5 million people living here, but only a small percentage can afford to live in the eastern suburbs, where many of these images were shot. But I met people who travel from inland suburbs to experience the early morning rock pool magic.

The name Emerald City comes from the title of the play by David Williamson, written 38 years ago, with its themes of greed and obsession with success. There is a line in the play: “The Emerald City of Oz. Everyone comes here along their yellow brick roads looking for the answers to their problems and all they find are the demons within themselves.”

The name Emerald City stuck. Read into it what you like because the waters do sparkle emerald green.

Thank you for reading. If you liked it, please click the “like” button and feed the algorithm, and make me feel fulfilled. Even better, leave a comment.

When I was writing this, I was listening to the surf down below the balcony of a house on the south coast, surrounded by eucalypts. More about those on another day. And sandstone.