Posers

This one isn't new. I was looking for something else in the files and my eyes settled on it. I just loved the way that three of the four in the foreground were posing and the fourth was oblivious.

It also reminded me of the warmer, brighter days to come.

Shot in March, 2007.

One That's Getting Away

It happens all the time, but I never like it.

Weather and light are conspiring right now to create a photograph that I can't possibly get to in time to record it..

Earlier in the day, I was preparing to walk out to the railroad right of way and await the failing of the light on the river.  The tripod was packed, lenses cleaned, all was ready... and then the rain squalls moved in in earnest.

So I started in on laundry instead.

Walking back into the living room and looking out just now I realized that the light I was hoping for was there now and would not be in the fifteen minutes that it would take me to run out there and set up the gear.

Overall, it probably would have been a good day to camp out (literally, to avoid being soaked to the bone) and record the range of weather that we can get here in a day.

But you only know these things in hindsight.

A Varied Sunday

It was not a great day for taking in details, but it still wasn't bad for photography.
Or coffee.
Or live lute music.  And coffee.  At Coffee Girl, of course.

The Sammi Crystal made yet another appearance, this time laden and outbound.

It's Coming Up!

My first exhibit of prints opens on November 14 at Old Town Framing Company in Astoria.  If you've browsed these posts, some images will be very familiar, some others will not.

Both framed and ready-for-framing images will be available for sale, though the framed ones need to remain on display for the month.

It's the Second Saturday Artwalk, so there will doubtless be a lot of other new exhibits up along Commercial and elsewhere.

Breaking With Most Conventions

If you watch ships transiting Astoria much, and if you listen to the Ship Report and you have at least one eye at least half open, this frame looks a little strange for a lot of reasons.

I noticed the Pacific Flores when I was heading out to run some errands this afternoon.

The first reason for making my detour to a good vantage point was because I thought I was looking at two ships in the anchorage when I caught my first glimpse. The forward cranes were so mismatched in size and configuration that they just didn't seem to be sprouting from the same deck.

When more of the ship came into view, I noticed the beam crane amidships AND another mismatched set of cranes aft... stuffed right up next to the house.

All pretty strange, but it didn't end there. The pilot boat running alongside is stationed in nearby Hammond, but we seldom see the Chinook working this far inland, as she's a bar pilot boat and is considerably overqualified for the protected waters of the Astoria anchorage.

And yet there's more... look how she's riding! No bottom paint visible, so she's relatively heavy with cargo, and yet she's bound upriver. Except for ro-ros carrying cars, that's quite unusual here.

And... (lot of "ands" in here), she's got both 20' and 40' containers arrayed on her decks (the 20-footers are aft, just ahead of the house). You'll probably have to double-click on the image to see the large version to see those details, but they're there.

Muted Colors, Shifting Tide

I haven't checked a tide chart, but I must have been heading home just as the tide peaked and began to ebb.

The deck gear on the Toucan Arrow struck me as strange and remarkably close at hand, so I (once again) detoured out to the East Mooring Basin's seawall.

I shot a couple of exploratory frames with the "kit zoom" but realized that the ship was just far enough away to make the 105mm a near-perfect choice. I switched lenses and started pacing the wall.

The utter calm made the river look like a lake for quite some time. After a while, the tide began to flow seaward and I noticed that the seawall itself had begun to form a series of ripples... a wake caused by a stationary object.
Even before I started shooting, I noticed an inbound ship making the turn north of Youngs Bay and kept that in mind as the time passed. Eventually, after the Toucan Arrow swung like a weather vane to point upriver, the Cook Strait passed her, and I was ready to capture the repeating curves of their bows.

And... I got to commune with a couple of greyhounds and swap stories with their humans.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Don't believe everything your GPS unit tells you.
I know, I'm easily amused.

I still chuckle a little every time I'm out on Pier 39 or at the East Basin.

Feels like I ought to be calling out "Up periscope!"