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Looking down (#42 in series: on a frond & a 100% organic “float”)

Published April 26, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#42 in series: on a frond & a 100% organic “float”)

 

 

 

As was true of #41 in this series, I took the featured photograph in southeastern Alaska’s Glacier Bay in June 2015.

Unsurprisingly, kelp “forests” thrive there.

Kelps (and all other seaweed species) do photosynthesise, but – like all other algae –  they are not plants.

Algae – even the towering “forests” of giant kelp – have no roots, nor any “complex” vascular structures.

As anyone who has harvested washed-up kelp from a beach knows, a single frond from a kelp “forest” can be massive – much too heavy to float.

So how does a kelp “forest” manage to stay upright, with its fronds positioned high enough in the water column to enable them to “harvest” the necessary sunlight?

You are looking at the answer.

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Looking down (#40 in series: on one of the darkest & fastest of its kind)

Published April 17, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#40 in series: on one of the darkest & fastest of its kind)

 

 

The featured image was not shot in monochrome.

Its colour palette is accurate; if my camera had looked straight up rather than almost straight down, the image would have largely been blue, flecked with white and grey.

I took the photo in a “remote” part of northern Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan province in May 2024.

What appears to be a rock is a rock; I have no idea of its mass, but am sure it would weigh at least several tonnes.

In the context of the relevant valley, however, that rock is a speck!

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Looking down (#39 in series: on a Madagascan barber, sans salon)

Published April 12, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#39 in series: on a Madagascan barber, sans salon)

 

 

An elevated vantage point sometimes offers an interesting, “different” view of human activity, and the opportunity to record it, candidly.

As the featured activity would suggest, I was looking down to a very “modest” street.

However, my vantage point for all images in this post was the most “desirable” location in Madagascar’s national capital – the royal palace complex, which sits atop the city’s highest hill.

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Looking down (#38 in series: on kelp, Otago Peninsula, NZ)

Published April 5, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#38 in series: on kelp, Otago Peninsula, NZ)

 

 

The Otago Peninsula is a long” finger”, extending 20 kilometres east-ish from the second largest city on New Zealand’s South Island.

Dunedin is modest in population – a “permanent” home to little more than 130,000 people, and now #7 in NZ.

Once, however, it was the nation’s premier city.

Dunedin still feels surprisingly “grand” and “important”; culturally, this “university city” is generally considered one of NZ’s “big four”.

The Otago Peninsula’s sheltered side is the southern wall of the large, drowned valley that is Otago Harbour.

Otago Peninsula’s ocean-facing side is very much wilder.

My photo looks down from the ocean side of the Peninsula’s extremity, Taiaroa Head, which is home to the world’s only “mainland”  breeding colony of Northern Royal Albatross.

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Looking down (#37 in series: on a Wandoo woodland’s floor)

Published April 1, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#37 in series: on a Wandoo woodland’s floor)

 

If you wish to experience an incredibly diverse array of extraordinary flowering plants – most especially, species that naturally occur in only one part of the world – you’d be best-advised to avoid places with “good” soil and abundant, “reliable” rainfall.

The “winning” combination:  “poor” soil, unreliable rainfall and a very high evaporation rate!

Arguably, the world’s best natural “flower gardens” are in the southwestern “corners” of Africa and Australia; there, “looking down” is almost always rewarding, but most especially so in Spring.

I took the photo on 30 October 2023, circa 100 kilometres southeast of Perth.

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Looking down (#36 in series: in Córdoba – “2” of “2”)

Published March 29, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#36 in series: in Córdoba – “2” of “2”)

 

 

With or without a camera to hand, it can be a great pleasure to look down on a “historic” city from a high vantage point, shortly before sunset.

I took the featured photo at 5.54 pm on 11 November 2025.

We were standing on the most elevated “viewing platform” in Córdoba – the upper section of its Cathedral-Mosque’s bell tower.

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Looking down (#35 in series: in Córdoba – “1” of “2”)

Published March 27, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#35 in series: in Córdoba – “1” of “2”)

 

Only very rarely do I photograph food on a plate.

However, at lunchtime on 11 November 2025 in the Spanish, Andalucian city of Córdoba, the pictured salad landed on our table.

It looked uncommonly lovely.

(In our restaurant-dining experiences in Spain, a main course very often proves memorably delicious, but salads and vegetables are all-too-often underwhelming, and/or barely-present)

I picked up the camera, looked straight down, and decided, “if this salad only looks delicious, I’ll delete the photo, pronto”.

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Looking down (#34 in series: nearly back to Juneau)

Published March 25, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#34 in series: nearly back to Juneau)

 

This post’s featured image was taken just five minutes after the previous one’s.

Beautifully soft late-afternoon/early evening light bathed the landscape – a “softer” landscape than the one we’d been looking at five minutes earlier.

The Taku Inlet (which is the Taku River’s lowermost section, after it encounters the Taku Glacier) below “our” floatplane” was widening, prior to its meeting the ocean.

We would be back in Juneau within five or six minutes.

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Looking down (#33: near-snout surface of a thinning, retreating glacier)

Published March 23, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#33: near-snout surface of a thinning, retreating glacier)

 

 

All photos in this post were taken within a few seconds of each other as we flew over the “bottom end” of the Taku Glacier.

Circa 15 minutes later we would be back in Juneau, Alaska’s capital city.

From there, no road will take you out into “wilderness”.

However, by floatplane, an incredible array of “pristine” locations are less than 60 minutes distant – some, less than 30 minutes away from downtown Juneau.

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