A couple of weeks ago a student of mine from New Jersey discovered something she did not know she had. A talent for capturing personality. The student, Lisa Olsen, was up in Gloucester for a three day Cape Ann Photo Tours experience. On our first day after a beautiful sunrise we headed over to Rockport for the morning ritual of lobstermen leaving the harbor. As it happens quite often when traveling we stopped to talk with one of them, “Gussy”. He is quite a character and talked with us for a few minutes about his bait and what the herring gulls dislike. As I talked with Gussy, Lisa was busy making shots of his many animated expressions.
As you can see the name of Gussy’s boat is “Gussy’s Girls”. The light was beautiful in the early morning and Lisa came up with some great shots. What she did not know was that she was telling a story with each image.
As Gussy got ready to climb down the ladder to his dinghy he motioned to the gulls as they flew by saying “not today, I have salted herring” because you see herring gulls hate anything salted.
Gussy was still talking and laughing with us as he sculled out to his boat using an oar that was held together with duck tape. You have to love his self made work dinghy, no oar locks and only a notch in the back to scull with.
As he got farther out to his boat we moved to an area where we could watch him go out for his day of lobstering.
The perfect shot to end this little story as he heads out for a day on Sandy Bay. Travel story telling photography does not have to be extensive it just needs to have the small pieces that pull it together. A beginning, (character intro), a middle (anchor images that pull your story together), and an end (an image that pulls it all together). Lisa has done that with five images. Short stories like this are perfect for adding to your travel book at the end of a photography trip.
Check out my krwilliamson blog about using the Sony 20mm pancake lens here