Baltimore’s Inner Harbor

Following up on the post Thoroughly Modern Ducky, I have a few more images from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor to share with you. The day we were there was bright and sunny, without much of the haze and humidity that besets Maryland sometime in mid to late April. That made it an excellent day for photography; reflections were bright and crisp and allowed for some quick shutter times. That was important, since we hadn’t brought our tripods.

Paddle boats awaiting summer’s tourists

The Inner Harbor area is a curious mix of old and new. At one end of the harbor the U.S.S. Constellation is moored. The Constellation holds the distinction of being the last sail-powered warship built by the U.S. Navy, and is now a floating museum. The complexity of the ship’s rigging and masts contrasts with the smooth contours of the U.S.S. Torsk, which is anchored directly in front of the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Another ship, the lightship Chesapeake, also calls Baltimore’s Inner Harbor home.

The U.S.S. Torsk, SS-423, has made Baltimore her home since 1972.

The National Aquarium in Baltimore (and seagull).

Thoroughly Modern Ducky

This male mallard duck is swimming through the reflection of Baltimore’s World Trade Center, seemingly unaware that he is a part of modern art. I took this image with my Nikon D70 and a 28-75mm lens. No digital manipulation has been done to this image — it’s exactly as I saw it!

We had gone up to Baltimore so that I could take photographs of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which was held this year on Sunday, March 11th. I’ll be posting the story behind that, as well as some of my favorite photos from the parade. It was certainly a colorful event, and not all of the colors were shades of green, either!

After the parade, and fortified with food and drink, we wandered over to the Inner Harbor to take a few photos before heading home. Baltimore isn’t very far for us, about 30 miles, but we don’t get up there much and it always seems like we’re tourists. I guess we are, kind of — just call us the “out of towners”! I’m taking a photojournalism class at the University of Maryland University College and this photo trip was for a class project.

I saw reflections of the World Trade Center in the water and thought they were interesting. As the water moved up and down, lapping at the docks, the reflections formed circles that continually moved, first breaking apart and then reforming, reshaping themselves into ovals and circles. It was pop art in motion. I was mesmzerized!

I wanted to do some aperture work and see how the images of the reflection would come out at different depths of field. I took about 8 photos of the reflection, not noticing that there was even a duck nearby. Mallards tend to travel in pairs, and this one was no exception because the female was close behind him, although I didn’t manage to get a photo of her because she was busy skimming the dockside looking for handhouts. The male just happened to swim into view as I was taking pictures. Carpe diem! I kept clicking the shutter and managed to get the bird in good focus. Notice how he has a small wake behind him, and how he broke up the reflection and allowed blue water (actually, a reflection of the sky) to show around his body like a halo.

This photo was taken with the D70 in Shutter Priority mode, with an aperture of 7.1 and a focal length of 75mm. I love how the image data is saved with the image! No more carrying around notepads and forgetting to record exposure data!

Arizona Desertscape

In October 2003 we took a trip west, driving all the way from Maryland to Las Vegas, and then coming back through Flagstaff, Arizona. It was a lot of driving, but I think it was a lot more interesting to see all of the landscapes in between our starting point and our destination.

In Arizona we visited the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, and Sunset Crater Volcano National Park and its surrounding areas. Our time was limited, so we didn’t get too much farther than this. From the volcano, we drove north and viewed the ruins at Wupatki National Monument. Even if you aren’t much for archaeology, this site is worth a visit just to soak in the atmosphere.

It’s very quiet there: Maryland is so noisy I can’t stand it most of the time. But there in the desert it was so quiet you could almost hear your own heartbeat. I’ve never experienced that kind of hush in nature, because even the quiet areas of Maryland or other parts of the east coast are usually populated at least with some birds. Nothing here is that silent.

The desert there was fairly flat. You can see for many miles in every direction, and all you see is desert: rocks, rocks, rocks. To the northeast we could see the Painted Desert, but that will have to be for another trip west.

The desertscape is beautiful in a very severe way. It’s hard to describe, but it’s incredible: it makes you feel so small. The sky seems huge, too. The photo presented here is a picture of the desert floor around Wupatki, showing some of the structure of the rocks and a few hardy bushes. Look about two-thirds of the way to the right and one-third down from the top of the picture. Do you see the rock that looks like a skull setting on its side, looking towards the left? Kind of creepy, huh? The area was filled with stuff like this.

Portrait of a Zebra

Yes, I had a really hard time coming up with a name for this photograph. But at least it’s descriptive.

This photo has always been a good seller for us at the art and craft shows that we’ve done in the past few years. People often ask us if we’ve been on a safari after they’ve seen this photo. And the short answer is “no.” This zebra was a resident of a zoo, and I managed to get his interest which is why his ears are up. As one show visitor said to me, all she could ever get were photos of the zebra’s butt. Oh, well.

I have both color and black-and-white versions of this photograph. In the color version of the photograph, which is the original, the zebra is actually not totally black-and-white. The hair inside of his ears is a yellow-ish brown, and his muzzle is dark chocolatey brown. The long hairs on his mane where it meets the whithers (where the neck joins the body) is almost reddish-brown. These are the animal’s natural colors; he hasn’t been “photoshopped” here.

This image was taken with a Nikon FE2 manual camera using Kodak E100 film. The slide was scanned in and minor editing done: i.e., spot removal and clean-up. The black-and-white version of this photograph was obtained by changing the color image to grayscale in Photoshop and making some small adjustments to the contrast.

Both versions of this image will be offered on the Tangent Graphics website.