Star of India bowsprit and sailors Sunset off San Diego 20181117 207of365
Jul, 2020Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo on the second day of a two day sail off San Diego organized by the San Diego Martime Museum. There were four tall ships associated with the museum in the sail and we were joined by a few more tall ships and many other sail and power boats off San Diego. On this day I was on the school 'America' (a rough copy the the schooner America that started the America's Cup off England long ago). The day before I spent on the schooner 'Californian' (a replica of the first US Revenue Marine cutter on the US West Coast. The USRM later merged with the US Life Saving Service to become the US Coast Guard).Time
This picture was taken near sunset.Lighting
Natural lightEquipment
Given that I was going to be in confined spaces and possibly get wet with salt water I took the minimum kit that would do the task I expected to need. The Sony RX10iv worked very well for this. Wonderful under-rated and little know camera. It's incredible zoom range of 24-600mm on a small light weight camera does have limitations (keep ISO below 800) but in daylight is excellent! I equipped the camera with a soft neoprene neck strap that had pockets to carry extra batteries and SD cards. Which I needed as I took about 8000 pictures on each of the two days of sailing.Inspiration
I was inspired to take this picture because I love sailing and tall ships. I've been on well over a dozen short day trips on various tall ships and a few longer trips. I also spent 6 months on the deck force of a tramp freighter in the Central Pacific while in the US Coast Guard.Editing
The post processing was two fold: 1) I wanted the end result to have the dreamy feel of a Maxfield Parrish painting rather than the hard edge of an Ansel Adams photo. 2) I wanted to give the feel of being close to the sailors. The long lens of the RX10 allowed this.In my camera bag
As mentioned above in detail, I took a very minimal kit as I was possibly going to get wet and would spend the day on a small schooner with little room to move around. As the ship would be sailing a camera bag might have gone rolling over the deck and possibly overboard. So camera, what I could put in the pockets in the camera strap, and a few spare batteries in my pants pockets.Feedback
Plan ahead. Practice. Try again and again (go sailing more than once0. And do talk to the crew for ideas. Get their inputs. While it didn't happen on this day sometimes the crew will let me be in places that other passengers were not allowed so I could get better photos (example - leaning way out of the ship Lady Washington when they were firing their canon so I could capture the moment of firing), Good luck!
