A nice sidelight highlights line and the bow of the schooner built in 1997 by Essex boatbuilder Harold Burnham.
I love bringing my camera along when I go out sailing. My wife and I went out for a sail on the Thomas E. Lannon for a beautiful evening on Gloucester Harbor. We had a nice light breeze to off-set the heat of the day. I did not shoot a lot of images but the ones I did I like quite a bit. So often I find myself converting images around the water to B&W. I don’t know why but for some reason I love the look of B&W maritime images. The wonderful tones in the low light of early evening are such a joy to work with.
Capt. Tom Ellis talks with passengers. I love the look of the line weaved around the binnacle.
I chose to bring my Fujifilm X-T30 with the 10-24 f4 which gave me the opportunity for shots of sails and things with the ultra wide, like the shot above with the binnacle in the foreground.
Block and tackle. The weaved line around the mainsheet block and tackle caught my eye.
In the stern of the schooner this mainsheet block and tackle with the line woven around it was an interesting subject and I was looking at it all the time. Finally near the end of the sail I made a photo of it.
Sunset was not great but it did spill over onto the eastern shore of Gloucester.
The sunset never did work out great but it still added to the horizon on the eastern shore of Gloucester. It was a great sail and I’m looking forward to doing it on the Ardelle and Adventure near the end of the month.
The Buck Moon rises next to the South Light on Thachers Island in July of 2019. Fuji X-T3 w/Fujinon 55-200 exp. ISO 400 1/13s @ f5.6. Luckily it was not real windy so the long shutter speed was fine. This is a fairly large crop from the original as I don’t have a lens longer than 300 (35mm terms).
A couple of the things that I preach with workshop attendees is that in most cases you will be rewarded when using patience and persistence. This image of the Buck Moon rising next to the South Light on Thacher’s Island is an image that required both. A friend had called a few days before reminding me of the Buck Moon and that it would be rising very close to sunset and that it would be rising between the the Twin Lights of Thacher’s Island in Rockport. As the appointed hour started to approach, which was at 8:21 PM, the clouds started to move in. What a real bummer it would be if the clouds blocked the moon. As the time approached I got even more apprehensive. Should I bother to go? Here is where the persistence came in. I decided to go and just see – who knows what will happen.
It still did not look promising as I walked up to our location on Eden Rd. From this location you can’t see the moon as it rises as the island blocks the horizon. I estimated that we would see the moon around ten minutes after it rose. So as we talked about the possibilities, the moon slowly poked out of the clouds and gave us a brief glimpse. So our patience paid off as we got about five minutes of shooting in before it rose into the clouds. It would show itself again later when it was dark but not near the lighthouses. The difficulty came with trying to time the red light on the lighthouse. I first counted how long it took to come around and once I figured that out it was just a matter of hitting the shutter a milli second before the light came around. So luck and skill were involved in making this image.
Others on social media have cheated and merged two images, one taken well before when it was obscured and another when it was well up in the sky. So in this case the image is not reality. The blending of two exposures to balance the dynamic range can make for a dramatic image. Unfortunately it produces images which are not a representation of reality. So I tend not to do them.
Therefore I give you this image which is and example of persistence and patience which is reality!.
Jen Fuller leads the “Clown Band” during the annual Fireman’s Parade in Rockport on the 4th of July. This shot was made by holding the camera up at arms length using the tilting screen to frame the shot.
I shoot parades like this with two cameras. Currently I’m using Fujifilm cameras, an X-T3 and X-T30. The lenses I chose for this assignment are the 10-24 f4 and the 55-200 f3.5-4.8. With these small light mirrorless digital cameras I can vary my angles and feel very comfortable carrying both cameras. These images are by no means earth breaking by any stretch but gives you an idea how easy it is to get an interesting perspective. The tilting screen gives you the ability to get low and high shots you normally don’t see. The best part of shooting this parade was shooting into the light which was blocked by trees in places but gave incredible long shadows that just add to the images.
Not a great photo but the shadows are awesome.
With my wide angle lens I try to get as close as I can to people in the parade otherwise the images will all look the same.
Jeff Lyons plays the trombone in the “Clown Band” for his 25th year during the annual Fireman’s Parade in Rockport on the 4th of July.Molly Lorenz does some juggling as part of the Rockport Fun Run on Motif #1 Day group during the annual Fireman’s Parade in Rockport on the 4th of July.
I used my long lens a few times but the wide angle shots are much more interesting.
Barry Clark represents the Westbrook Fire Dept. which always makes an appearance during the annual Fireman’s Parade in Rockport on the 4th of July.
Shooting assignments like this can be fun if you have the right gear and you look for something different.
