The tall ships came to Portsmouth a couple of weeks ago. There were five in all – two of which moored at Pierce Island for tours. They were a replica of Magellan’s Trinidad and a restored 17th century schooner called Ernestina-Morrissey. I took two trips to photograph them on the same day: once for a tour in the morning and once in the evening. The morning session didn’t result in much, but the evening did along with some photos of Prescott Park and the bridges.
The sunset turned out not to be as beautiful as I envisioned because it was blocked by many of the trees in Prescott Park. There were a few rays of golden light that hit the hulls, resulting in a picture of each and one of the harbor. I was surprised that there were still people touring the ships at sunset as tours ended at 5; they cluttered my images a bit. The harbor photo was neat because the gundalow was out, making for an interesting image in front of the busy background of the shipyard.
As the sun continued to set, I moved back through Prescott Park, grabbing a shot of the Sarah Long Bridge with the Piscataqua River Bridge in the background at sunset. I found a new angle from Harbor Walk Park, on the left side of the bridge, and captured the shoreline on the other side of the Piscataqua. I took an image on Daniel street and intentionally used a slow shutter speed to blur the car passing by. I’m proud of this one – handheld at 1/15 second. My Z8’s image stabilization helped quite a bit here as I usually can’t pull these shots off without a tripod.
Similar to sunset, the night photos weren’t as beautifully idyllic as I expected. The shipyard creates a lot of light pollution and the harbor creates a distracting background. This is the only good shot I got of the Ernestina-Morrissey (right) as the two bright lights in its background made it difficult to photograph alone.
The Trinidad was a better subject. The top right image was the first I took as the light was fading. It’s a 25 second exposure. The tall image on the left came five minutes later and is also a 25 second exposure. It’s my favorite of the bunch. The light is just right, the water blends the reflections, and the sky makes a nice gradient. I had to edit this one as the original ended right above the mast and looked incorrectly proportioned. I used Photoshop’s new generative fill feature and some manual blending to “finish” the top. The last image was taken just seven minutes later and shows a darker sky. I like this one because of its deep, almost-HDR contrast.
I snagged this cool shot of the bridge to Pierce Island as I left the tall ships for the evening. This is a 3 second shot on a tripod. I had another with a car driving by and creating streak across the top of the bridge but it’s too blurry to use. Oops.
Towards the end of the night I made my way over to the Memorial Bridge again. I’ve photographed this bridge at night before, so I only took one shot from my regular Prescott Park vantage point. The lights on the bridge were kind of a rainbow, which made it pretty cool. I took another long exposure looking down Daniel Street, this time with a tripod for a 1.3 second exposure. I took several shots, hoping to get one with some movement. It was a bit difficult because cars don’t drive fast on this street, but this image fits the bill. My final two images use the vantage point at Harbor Walk Park and on the other side of Harbor Place Marina (by Stub Hub). I discovered these two areas while walking to Prescott Park. I’ve never shot the bridge from this vantage point before.
All-in-all it was a good night. I spent about 2.5 hours at the park and got some great shots with my new camera. I felt really prepared this time – I had the tripod, the remote shutter release, I shut off stabilization for long exposures, I checked my framing. The weather was nice, there was a concert going on at the park, and there was a feeling of liveness to everything. It was really, really nice. I’m glad I went out to photograph the tall ships and I want to get a few more shots of the Memorial Bridge from the left side before the summer’s out.
Relatively Ambitious 