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gloucester

Early Evening Sail

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Lannon
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.

Lannon
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.

Lannon
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.

Lannon
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.

Patience – never give up on a sunset!

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Lanes Cove sunset
Memorial Day sunset at Lanes Cove Gloucester

We knew it would be close! The sun was going down and my wife and I could see the color popping up under the rather large cloud layer that had moved in. So driving along 127 in Gloucester towards Lanes Cove kept bringing the question, are we going to miss it? As it turned out we were just in time. Shooting at water level made a huge difference.

I made this image handheld with the lens OIS on. The exposure was 1/50s at f 5.6 with the ISO at 400. This image is sharp as a tack. The OIS is outstanding on the Fuji 18-55. As you can tell by the flag it was blowing pretty good. A slower shutter speed at a lower ISO with a tripod would have meant the flag would have shown more movement.

I really like this shot of the glow on the horizon as the sun dipped below it.

 

Lanes Cove
Sunset over Lanes Cove

Then I switched to my Fuji 10-24 to see if there were any good wide shots available. I tried a few different compositions but nothing really felt good so I headed back to the car. Just as I was about to climb into the car my wife said; turn around you’re going to miss it. So I turned around and this is what I saw. My first thoughts were wide and the crop will be 16:9 and that is what I ended up with.

The exposure was tricky but Lightroom was able to pull the shadows and calm down the sunset so it all worked. The exposure on this wide shot as the light level started to go down was 1/25s f4.5 @ ISO 640. I would have rather had the tripod for this shot so I could have shot at a lower shutter speed. ISO 640 might be a little high. When I print this I will see what the shadows print like.

Wet Feet

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wave wash
Waves wash over rocks along the back shore of Gloucester, MA. Fujinon 10-24 (.3 s @ f14 ISO 100)

Running photo tours along the seacoast can be tricky at times. I am constantly warning participants about the dangers of getting to close to the water as waves can pull you in. The other day I was out shooting in one of my favorite spots which I know quite well but can be dangerous if one is not paying attention. It was well after high tide but the waves were still rolling in as the tide went out. I thought I was well out of the way of any incoming waves and had placed my camera and tripod in a spot down low to catch waves slowly coming in over a rock in front of me. I should have known the best shot would be the one where the wave comes in over the rock and soaks me up to my ankles. A rogue wave came in and blasted over the rock in front of me and got me real good but left the camera dry. Now if I had my “Wellies” on, as the Brits would say, this would not have been a problem. This brings up one of my maxims of shooting water, if you’re not in the water your images will not have any impact. So next time I will remember to bring my boots!