Thursday, September 27, 2012

Gloucester Parade of Sail



Each year on Labor Day weekend, the city of Gloucester, MA holds an event in their harbor called the Parade of Sail.  The city brings in a large number of old sailing vessels that are available for viewing throughout the weekend.  Then on Sunday, each vessel sails out of the main harbor, past the Fisherman monument at the edge of the harbor and out to sea.  It's quite an event and very impressive to see these ships sail past.



It provides a wonderful opportunity for photography.  I was positioned in Stage Fort Park at a rocky overlook that got a full view of the harbor.  We new from past experience that all the ships would sail right past that location.  Now, the ships started out at about 10:00am so this was not an opportunity for taking beautiful sailing ships in 'Golden Light'.  It was, 'unfortunately', bright and clear with a fair amount of clouds.  You get some nice shots of the ships, but to get something unique you need to be a little creative.  If you look at the first picture, I have taken a nice shot of a large number of the sailboats and converted it to black and white.  Then I took a little liberty with the look of the picture by adding contrast and making the clouds look more ominous than they actually were.  I was trying to change the mood of the picture through some small manipulations of the areas of the picture.



This image shows a slightly different processing technique.  Again, I have brought up the contrast in the clouds to again bring some drama to the sky.  And I was able to brighten the sails to get a bit of glow into the sails and draw the viewers attention to the boat.



I'll leave you today with this final picture.  This sailboat had come through the harbor and was turning to leave the harbor and head out to sea  I thought it was kind of a nice way to  end the day.  You can find other pictures I took that day here at my website.

Friday, September 21, 2012

The Beauty of the Wave



I realized that I am continually drawn to the shore to take pictures.  And inevitably I wind up with shots of wave action on the rocks.  I just can't seem to help myself.  But, it's sometimes hard to be able to bring out the details you were seeing when standing by (and sometimes inadvertently, in) the water.  When you bring those shots up on the screen, even a properly exposed picture will show the wave as a white mass with very little detail.  Fortunately, if you shoot in Raw you can bring out much of the missing detail, because it really isn't missing.  Performing localized adjustments within the image can darken the overly white areas and also darken those gray areas that are getting washed out and bring out all the rich detail that is hidden inside.



There are different ways to approach the wave.  Often we think in terms of the sudden splash with the large rush of water.  I find this is best captured with a fast shutter speed to try and grab the water flying in the air.  Being a landscape photographer, I unfortunately use wide angle lenses which means to truly capture the size of the wave you need to move in close.  The next picture is a testament to the problem of the wide angle lens.



Here is a shot from Cape Neddick, Maine at the Nubble Point Lighthouse.  Great mood with the fog with substantial wave action.  I was standing good and close and trying to get the splash from the wave without obscuring the lighthouse.  See the crack in the rock in the foreground?  Well, water runs in cracks.  I was standing looking through the viewfinder, grabbed this shot, and then realized that my feet were cold.  When I looked down I was ankle deep in 50 deg F seawater.  But I got the shot!!

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You can also let the waves work for you in slow motion.  The shot above was taken in Acadia National Park just before sunrise.  It is looking out from the Thunder Hole area across to Otter Cliffs.  This is approximately a 45 sec exposure and you can see how the waves have been smoothed out over time so you just see the silkiness left.

Finally, I leave you with one last image.  You can take the wave and show how humans can interact.  The last image was taken at Hoo'Kipa Beach in Maui, HI.  I took a lot of pictures on the bluff overlooking this beach while the windsurfers went flying with these waves.  Absolutely beautiful to watch and shoot.



Thanks for looking....