These pelicans hunkered down on a windblown shoreline

I had some time to roam around the Gerringong Boat Harbour recently and wanted to share this pic. I have been doing a lot of very long exposures (10 - 30 minutes) in daylight hours recently and set up for this scene late in the afternoon. There were storm clouds to the east but the western sky was clear so the low light crossing the scene was beautiful.

As I fine tuned the composition and calculated the exposure needed for the 16 stops of ND filter, two pelicans settled on the shoreline. They looked great, hunkered down against the brisk onshore wind but I thought they would fly away at some stage during the 26 minute exposure.

As you can see, they didn’t and although it may not be obvious at smaller sizes they are almost pin sharp. About the only movement is the wind ruffling their feathers. If you click on the picture it will take you to the full vertical composition. there you might notice the ghost images of two rocks in the bottom corner that were moved by the surging waves during the exposure.

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Paul Foley

I am an Australian fine-art photographer based in Newcastle, New South Wales, and have been making photographs for more than fifty years, including 35 years as a professional commercial photographer.

I think of much of my personal work simply as finding pictures—looking for relationships between light and shadow, lines and shapes, landscape and humanity. My photographs range across landscape, the sea, abstraction and the human form, with recurring interests in time, place and memory.

I remain a generalist photographer. Some ideas develop into collections that I return to over many years; others appear unexpectedly and result in a single photograph.

My work has been recognised in Australian and international photography awards and exhibited in Australia and overseas. Including as a finalist in the Galah Regional Photography Prize (2025) and National Photographic Portrait Prize (2011), selected to hang in several 'Mosman 2088' exhibitions and included in group exhibitions in Glasgow, Tokyo, Newcastle and China. I have also had individual and collaborative exhibitions in Sydney and Newcastle.

I live in Newcastle, Australia.

https://www.paulfoley.com.au
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