Day two of 2014. The trains were still running to a holiday timetable so although I had to work, I did so from home. Consequently I was still able to go down to the beach for my morning constitutional walks.

As a result, I took a wide range of various beach shots. Nothing spectacular, nothing particularly dreadful either and pretty much any of them could have served as the PAD for today. I was in fact after some shots of a king tide that was predicted to come in and although the water level was very high, you'd only know that had you been familiar with it at lower tide. There was nothing spectacular about it at all, save for the fact that the ocean rock pool was pretty much under water rather than sticking out of a bit as it usually does. I chose this shot primarily because I was surprised at how well the Olympus, with its small sensor and general purpose lens took what was almost a macro shot of this seagull feather that was stuck in the sand.

The other thing that I was struck by was the contrast here to many of the northern hemisphere PADS that were posted around the same time. (And in particular, I'm looking at you, Ron.) Cold, wet and/or wintry, compared to the bright sunshine and warmth of the summer down here. Mind you, at the time I'm writing this (16 January) the south-east of the continent was baking in a heatwave of temperatures between 40 and 50°C. Thankfully we've been spared that because of the onshore breeze along the east coast, but it's still hot, sticky and uncomfortable.
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Edit, April 2025: "Ron" was an ex-grunt (and I mean that affectionately) who had a gallery on PBase, and was (probably is) a genuinely good guy. At some point when I was on one of my many hiatuses from PBase he cleaned out his galleries and departed the site without a word of explanation. Unlike many whose accounts have been deleted his account is still there, it's just devoid of any content. It is indeed a pity, but he's not the first, and he's not the thousandth.

That said, there are a lot of Groups on Flickr which were created 15 years ago by people who have long since departed as well. The difference is that Flickr still has membership inflow. I doubt that PBase does.

Also, back then I didn't feel the need to qualify the term "the Olympus" since I was still notionally a Canonista. It is of course a reference to the E-P1 pocket camera. My switch to Olympus for my main cameras would not occur until June of this year.