Tag:ships

The Best Laid Plans

As the saying goes, ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray. Add photographers to that, too.

A group outing

A large group of us from Melbourne Photography Excursions headed down to Princes Pier and their famous pier pylons on Melbourne Cup Eve. It had rained most of the morning; the skies were heavy and leaden. Our original plan was to photograph the pier pylons at sunset, but the sky hid behind a heavy cloud. The wind blew straight off the bay, and the added wind chill factor with the day’s rain made for a freezing photoshoot. We did a group shot first. Maureen from Shoot Melbourne took our photo before we all froze. We are a hardy lot (that’s hardy, not foolhardy!).

The MPE group
ND Filters

To add to my woes, my new ND filters hadn’t arrived, and I used my ND10. This is a highly dark filter. I have to focus, flip the switch to manual focus and add the filter, as once it’s on, the camera hunts in the dark for a focus point. This works fine if I take very long exposures. Beyond 30 seconds, I need to go to bulb mode. No problem, I will use my remote switch in bulb mode. Hmmm, huge problem: the remote is flat as a tack, and I don’t have a spare battery with me. Drop ISO, drop exposure, come up to F22, and I ended up with a reasonable 30sec  long exposure.

Ships at the pier

Three ships were in port that night for the Melbourne Cup. So we were all chopping and changing between photographing the vessel and the pylons. And moving around helped prevent hypothermia.

Cruise ships in town for Melbourne Cup

At one point, the Spirit of Tasmania started steaming out of port bound for Devonport, Tas. With the wind whipping off the choppy seas, I didn’t fancy their chances of a smooth crossing.

Spirit of Tasmania leaving port
Little Ray of Sunshine
A lacklustre sunset

Just as the sun went down, we were treated to a pop of colour on the horizon, and all cameras swivelled in that direction. Not the sunset we were hoping for, but as we didn’t expect one at all, we accepted it gratefully 🙂

As night dropped, the ships lit up, and the pylon’s lights came on, providing us with light to see. Finally, we threw the towel in around 8.30 and returned to the car’s warmth.

City lights

Footnote #1:  My run of poor planning hadn’t finished. When I repacked my bag, I seemed to leave behind the flat remote. Fortunately, all was not lost, as one of the members found it, posted it to the group looking for an owner and a week later, the remote and I are now reunited 🙂

Footnote  #2: Filters arrived two days after the excursion!

© Bevlea Ross