Gustav Hoiland

By: Gustav Hoiland

May 28 2010

Category: ocean travel

1 Comment

Aperture:	f/9
Focal Length:	18mm
ISO:	250
Shutter:	1/0 sec
Camera:	NIKON D80

Ahhh, the sun. I’ve been paying attention to sun in photographs lately, mostly in the very interesting blow-outs it creates where people fade into the all consuming whiteness and the wonderful colors of refraction or other physics phenomena make their way into the frame. This photo has some of that, namely the flares and lines coming from that hot fiery ball of light-emitting gas.

So the sun’s nice, but it’s just a small part of this image. I think this capture is all about shapes and lines. On the left there’s a trapezoid of sorts while the right is dominated by a large white rectangle that sharply turns dark near the bottom. The deck itself is another kind of augmented triangle. Within all of these shapes are lines that break them up and generally complement the angles of the borders. On the left there’s that nice railing. On the deck there’s the shadows from the ladder and other beams. On the right…. well there’s just the lines from the sun crossing that really.

Beyond the in-shape lines, there’s plenty of detaily small lines, all kind of hanging out by the sun. The ladder and all of its steps. The railing and its support bars. A water pipe and its valves. All a bunch of warm lines just hanging out.

Finally, the red/yellow/white color really does it for me. The sky is blown out to whiteness while the 100% white walls have picked up a very warm, yellow tint from that same light. There’s also some great contrast wherein the shadows are deeper red and the sunlit parts of the deck are a much richer.

Double finally, the name of the ship, the “LT Cortesia” can be seen in part just to the left of the sun (only the letters ESIA can really be made out)… and somehow that helps to define this location more definitely.

Not shown is the howling wind.