Saturday afternoon we departed San Diego Harbor for a cruise to Hawaii. So the plan was to depart the harbor at 3pm which meant decent light before sunset. The planning side of my mind went to work, coming up with story ideas that I wanted to capture as we exited the harbor.
Well, as with all good plans life happened. Onboarding enough fuel and supplies for the 2200 mile journey to Hawaii was clearly more important than departing on time. So as we started to pull out at 6 pm we watched a sunset, then golden and blue hour passed as we moved out of the harbor. So the only thing left to do was to adapt to the new conditions.
The harbor at sunset presents some interesting challenges for photographers. Harsh light on the water, low light conditions, and the movement of the ship. It also presents interesting opportunities to photograph unique boats on the harbor, backlight sails, and setting sunlight reflections on the waterfront buildings. All images captured were using a Sigma 100 to 400 on my Nikon 850.
Blue Hour Skyline - Setting Sunlight on waterfront buildings presents an opportunity for high iso captures that capture both the reflected sunlight and the interior lights of the buildings. Attached is a panorama of 5 images that captured the San Diego Waterfront during blue hour. Final composited image was about 18,000 pixels, which I downsized to 3,000 pixels in this image.
Backlit Sails - The next image is of backlit sails. Since the sail boat and the ship were closing a good exposure required that I adjust my shutter speed with the length of the lens to get in focus captures, so I used shutter priority, and Auto ISO. I really enjoy the warm backlit sails and unique sail shapes as part of this interesting capture.
Silhouetted Sailboat - The most challenging shot was shooting directly into the sun that silhouetted this sail boat in bright sunlight. Here I let the light drive the image to a Black and White capture. (Look at image exposure)
Capturing the story in front of you is more important than capturing the story you imagined. Adapting to changing conditions is an essential skill as a travel photographer. Be in the moment and capture reality. Visit my site for more images. https://www.mikemercadante.com/journeys
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