Drain Uphill
More of the storm drain on the beach in Ross Bay, but this time I turned around and looked inland from part way out the drain. A new perspective for me, it was the first time I can remember, possibly ever, that I walked out on the drain – usually it is too wet to do so. I was pleased to find these slightly wind-distressed trees lining Eberts Street. Now that I look more closely, the main distress for these trees is the utility company pruning branches away from the lines. A chronic problem around here as they do it without care for the tree’s long-term health and often the bad pruning can cause rot and premature demise of trees. We need more underground services, but $$ will prevent that from happening for a very long time.
This is another view through the 24mm lens, though I have cropped it quite heavily. The picture was taken on the same rainy day as the last drain picture I posted – the wet surface of the drain is fresh water since the waves were small and the tide quite low. I like the subtle reflections of the tree and utility pole on the drain surface.
You can find the other storm drain pictures through this link.
Canon EOS 5Dmkii, Nikkor-N 24mm, f2.8 lens, ISO 640, ca f5.6, 1/500th second.
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burnt embers 
Beautiful. I love the drama of the scene – reflections on the stone work, blackened trees, and deep, gray clouds. Another beautiful face.
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There are many faces for sure. This one is perhaps less salubrious than the others, but worth having a look at. I sometimes wonder, when looking at pictures, ‘what was behind the photographer?’ This is a good example of how the camera sets up expectations in ways that are a bit misleading.
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Indeed. I would never guess residential streets from all the imposing nature in the other shots. I love it.
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Hmmm, didn’t think there were houses behind the drain!
While I do like the surface of the drain (nice to see), I do prefer the “normal” PoV. 😀 I find it interesting how one side of the drain is rocky while the other side isn’t.
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The rocks are an interesting story in themselves, which your observation touches on. The sandy side is natural sediment. The pebbles however are all “introduced” The water against the sea wall in the area to the east was deep, with the bottom exposed only at the lowest tides and it was rocky and weedy and slippery and very unpleasant place to walk and so on – in other words it was not used. In winter storms the road was washed over and covered in rocks and logs after storms. The sea wall was coming apart and needed replacing, or fixing. The fix was to put in rip-rap groins at right angles to the beach and to then bring in endless barges of pebbles which were loaded onto the spaces in between the groins. This was a few years ago. The groins act to hold the pebbles in place, exactly the same way that the storm drain does. It is now a pebble beach all along here, at street level or a bit higher. It is growing sedges, has logs tossed onto its surface and is a nice walk at all but the worst storms. Waves rarely make it onto the street. In many ways it is a successful bit of marine engineering. I have no idea what the knock-on effects are, but I expect there are some to the local subtidal ecosystem. For us humans, it has worked out really well.
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there is some nice surface texture to the concrete seen from this angle that I dont remember in the other views
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Hi Val – it shows the texture up, I think it is because I am a bit above the drain. I have others, not posted, that are looking to sea but standing on the drain, and they show these textures quite nicely. I expect I will share some of them over the next while.
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I love the stormy look of this photo, great tonal range in the stones especially in the soft sky reflections.
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Thanks Lynn, glad you like it.
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We have this type of pruning in our area where there are overhead lines and it’s just awful what they do to these trees. Better to remove them altogether than to leave them is such a state. They become ugly eyesores and I’m sure the trees never recover. The storm drain does not have the same appeal from the inward POV, but I have to say that this satisfies my curiosity about what it looked like. I wasn’t expecting it to be residential.
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It’s not so satisfactory, is it? It would be a great place to live, right along there. Just to the right in this view is the Ross Bay Cemetery which is very park like and occupies a several square blocks, so about half or more of this beach is backed by a forested appearance. And in the cemetery they treat the trees well.
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