It might not be a real word, but ‘dockscapes’ come to mind after wandering around these airfields of the sea. The only part of my routine for shooting ‘dockscapes’ that is similar to ‘landscapes’ is getting up at 4-5 am. Chasing the nuances of an early morning glow, sky or clouds will set your image apart from that 6-7 am Image (or so I have convinced myself). The next part of ‘dockscapes’ to remember is that the ships are rocking on the ocean and tides are a consideration, so be aware that a long exposure at o’dark thirty is going to have motion blur, so a high ISO is needed if that is not the effect you want.
Harbor docks are areas of feature rich visual imagery, like this lantern and masts, and can found in multiple dimensions. Shooting height is usually left for urban cityscapes with there are tall buildings, but here on the docks you need to keep in mind that interesting subjects can be found besides eye-level or sea-level.
During the setup for this capture, the front of this lamppost needed some light, luckily some recent training by Bryan Peterson on the SB-900, had me better prepared and experienced to use a tad of artificial light. I was also quite sure that when I clicked my Nikon D3s that this was going to be digitally developed as a B&W. However, after some intricate three image harvesting layers, I took the results into NIK Silver Effects Pro. Then after twenty minutes, it came to me, that the existing muted colors however opaque made this Image speak to me. I did however, use SEP for reducing the saturation tonality on the lamppost and lantern to something more aesthetically pleasing. Then I recalled watching a NAPP training video by RC Concepcion on lighting and spent some time bringing the light luminance out. Sharpening for these fine shrouds and lines was done by a great plugin at Pixel Genius, Photokit Sharpener 2.0.
So all in all, this simple Image is the sum of three trips to the Camden harbor over the last three years, two workshops with Vincent Versace, one workshop with Bryant Peterson, observing my surroundings by looking up, carringthe SB-900, setting the camera at a high ISO, and a recent NAPP video. Whew….but all that stuff is the journey of enjoyment and learning this craft….
The image that is created at capture is still what grabs me…..
I hope you now want to head out some early morning and turn your head skywards and get a new perspective on ‘dockscapes’
