Gustav Hoiland

By: gustavHoiland

Jan 31 2010

Category: ocean travel

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Aperture:	f/3.5
Focal Length:	18mm
ISO:	100
Shutter:	1/3200 sec
Camera:	NIKON D80

Keeping with vertical shots off boats showing horizons, here’s a much different look (two posts today, see previous photo for obvious parallels).

What’ve I got to say about shot… more vanishing point stuff ending on the horizon.  Three rectangles again – ocean, sky and ship.  It’s not until you hold a camera that you consider the ocean as possibly being nothing more than a textured rectangle.

If I recall correctly, this shot wasn’t as dramatic as this in person. It was darkened up, desaturated, and otherwise made perhaps more striking.  And I think that’s OK, mostly because it doesn’t involve a sunset.  I’m very much against manipulating sunsets with software.  They’re marvelous enough in real life, and enhancing them further is just cruel for the viewers.  It’s like taking divinely beautiful people and photoshopping them to be flawless… anybody can be made perfect with software (trust me)… so that makes the blessedly gorgeous no different than the… I don’t know what I’m getting at.  This is coming from someone who strongly dislikes make-up on the day to day.

And how was this shot?  Well, the camera’s locked into a tripod, which has its legs fulled extended, which is then being held at arms length of of the boat by yours truly.  There’s something exhilarating about putting your best equipment at great risk with the confidence that comes with trusting that equipment not to fail.  Check the tripod lock, set the timer, thrust it over the guard rail, try to compose the shot long range, and hope for the best.  Repeat a couple of times and you’ll get this.