Jonathan Abdipranoto, The Northern Beaches Life (Landscape)

I spent a few mornings taking photos of the ocean pools along Sydney's Northern Beaches hoping to get an elusively perfect shot of the sunrise with gloriously vivid and vibrant colours in the sky. I found that the pools offered a great deal more as a subject than taking a photo of the sea and its interaction with nearby rocks and it also provided the opportunity to talk to the locals and glean some wisdom from their words and a hint at what their lives are like on the beach. It allowed me to see the crashing of high tide waves against these plain yet robust pools and respect not just our ability to create but nature's awesome ability to overwhelm. Some mornings were calm with vibrant colours that both photographers and swimmers would admire, other mornings were dangerous as waves crashed ashore with respectable and unrelenting fury. What ever the conditions were, there was always a cheery local doing lap after lap of their beloved pool and once they finished, they were always happy to have a chat with the guy with the camera.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.