Jewels performing with her firehoops
Boys like fire. Boys really like girls playing with fire. That’s what happened when the Washington waterfront held its fourth annual Beaufort County Music Festival. Just after dusk, Hoopdrum took the stage and hypnotized young & old for the duration of their performance. Jewels dances with fire while Scott plays his homemade drums. They’re out of Carrboro, North Carolina but are known around the world for their performances.
90mm, ISO 1600, f/5.6, 1/8 sec.
I’m in the process of replacing all of my ground tackle (anchors, chain, rope, etc). Staring at the pile of old rusty chain and rode in my cockpit, it occurred to me that I should probably learn how to make eye splices, secure thimbles in those splices, and get smart on a variety of other “marlin spike” qualities. Hell, I can already sew and tie a few knots, I might as well go the distance and learn how to be an expert in manipulating rope. I’ll be glad I did when I’m floating in a remote harbor and need to jury-rig standing rigging or encounter some other scenario that is impossible to predict. That’s where the term “jury-rig” came from, as a matter of fact – manipulating rope and spars in order to save the ship by making temporary masts, booms, and rigging. 99mm, ISO200, f4.0, 1/640 sec.
The Jeanie B arrived in the “original” Washington on March 21st, welcomed by a water cannon on a Coast Guard skiff.
This 72-foot gaff-rigged schooner has been the talk of the town for the past few months, as city council members discussed giving the vessel a home on the Washington waterfront. The ship, built in 1985 and relatively young (younger than my boat!) still brings back reminders of the town’s history as one of the east coast’s major shipping ports. Tall ships like these schooners were all over the waterfront between one hundred and two hundred years ago.
The Jeanie B is used for boys’ and girls’ camps, and also provides sunset & stargazing trips to anyone interested a few nights a week – the ship’s “specialization”, if you will, is celestial navigation. The deal made with the town council offers the ship a free slip for a term of five years in exchange for a cut of its commercial profits. The Jeanie B’s official website is at http://jeanieb.com/.
The Dragon Boat races of Museumsuferfest, Frankfurt Germany.
No, I didn’t get out to take any new photos this week. I spent most of the week in the “Transition Assistance Program”, which is designed to assist military members on an upcoming separation or retirement. I also got A LOT of work done on the boat, including finishing that dodger I’ve been working on for a few months…five if I’m counting correctly. While continuing to go through all of my photos, cleaning up the file structure and identifying keepers, I came across this photo from Germany. This was another photo that I almost deleted until I took some creative license with the contrast, and suddenly it just popped out of the screen.
This photo was taken from a bridge over the Main River in Frankfurt, during the Drachen Boot (Dragon Boat) races of Museumsuferfest. This festival is held annually in late August, and the banks of the Main River are full of concerts, artisans, and food & beer vendors, and all of Frankfurt’s museums are open all hours of the night. 90mm, ISO800, f5.6, 1/200 sec.
A Northern Goshawk bleeds his kill, a common pigeon, before carrying it away.
I’m glad I was a slightly more awake than I usually am in the morning. While walking to the bathroom, I heard a lot of commotion around the corner of the building and noticed this juvenile Northern Goshawk bleeding out a pigeon that it had just captured. I immediately went back to my boat for my camera and was able to take a few snaps before he flew off with his catch in his claws.
I debated spending more time at the boat to switch out from my 24-105mm lens to my 70-200mm so I could get a tighter shot, and also getting my flash for some fill. I didn’t want him to fly off before I could get a picture, so I managed with what was already on my camera body. 105mm, ISO200, f5.6, 1/80 sec, no flash.
Oh, the things we share our living spaces with. Boats are notorious for serving as storage sheds – storage for all the things you’ve accumulated over the years, but that serve no purpose, and you can’t get rid of. So throw them in the boat. And when you head out to the marina to go sailing, you can just move it out of the way or ignore it.
Liveaboards are on the other end of the “accumulated things” spectrum. The boats are storage areas, but only for the few things that we have room for, because it’s also our living space.
I was eating lunch with my two new anchors at my side, staring at my sailmaking machine, and thought to myself “hmm, I never thought I’d share my living room/dining room with two anchors and a sewing machine.” I was obligated to take a picture of the scenario.
The anchors are new, to replace the one twenty-pounder that came with the boat, and I’ll be writing a post about replacing all of my ground tackle once that process is complete.
32mm, ISO800, f4.0, 1/15 sec, bounce flash off the cabin top.
Am I really recycling photos?
Well, yes, and no.
Reality has again hit me and I was unable to get a photo worth sharing this week. I’m not 100% perfect – but close – and now I must adapt. I have been going through old previously unpublished photos, and found some worth breathing some life into. So that’s what I’ll be doing if I can’t snap a good one during the week.
This photo is from a pizzeria in Rome. This pigeon thought it could get away with stealing a sliced tomato from this pizza until I stuck my camera lens in its face. Sorry buddy, there’s plenty of tomatoes in Rome. 105mm, ISO800, f5.6, 1/250sec.
Just a day late getting this out for the week of 1/30/12. There’s really no story behind this one. I was walking the dock one night, the sky was a spectacular color, the water was amazingly calm, and the reflections were unreal.
You’re looking at the bow of a sailboat reflected in the water, with the dock lines coming off the side. The anchor is visible at top and the furling jib at the bottom. 200mm, ISO400, f/5.6, 1/10 sec.
I had good intentions, I really did. I’m talking about my self-imposed weekly photography assignments. It sounded like a great idea, one that I’ll hang on to. But the reality of my current situation is that I don’t have the time to stalk these assignments every week and come out with something that I’m proud of. For example, last week’s assignment was to create something with an exposure longer than one second. My availability did not lend to finding compositions that would require exposures that long. I’ll definitely be keeping up with the photo of the week, but after the above excuses, I’ll just be looking for targets of opportunity. Like what Monday’s fog presented.
I decided to step a little bit out of my “norms” for this week’s (really last week’s) photo-of-the-week assignment. I wanted to walk around Washington’s historic Harbor District and find some interesting windows. Some of the buildings date back to the 18th century, and almost all of them have an interesting character about them. This week’s photo is of the Fowle Warehouse.
The Fowle Warehouse was built in the early-to-mid 1800s and survived a brutal Civil War battle. Washington, NC
