Island in the Net by Khürt Williams
Technology and Photography Musings. Established circa 2000.
I didn't have much time to capture a new image for Frank's weekly photography challenge this week. However, I do have a set of the night and long-exposure photography images in my Adobe Lightroom catalogue, which I will submit for the challenge.
Boathouse Row, Schuylkill River, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania @princeton_photo
This image was captured in 2016 during a field trip to Philadelphia's Boathouse Row with the Princeton Photo Workshop and instructor Richard Sherman.
My sensor must have been dirty that day. I removed at least ten of them using content-aware fill in Photoshop. I also removed a number of hot pixels. I then applied the Reflector Efex filter using Color Efex Pro 4. I didn't do any tweaking beyond this and I like the result.
Sometimes it is worth it to go back to an image taken in the past, images that I didn't get around to processing, images that I may have processed previously but could benefit from new techniques that I have learned. I think photography is one of those art forms where the techniques can be easy to learn in the beginning but it takes time to become skilled at its use. But even then, being skilled is not enough. The photographer must continue to experiment to hopefully develop the wisdom to what to do and when to do it. I am still on that journey and personal wisdom, the sort that comes with age, tells me that I must focus on the destination while also enjoying the journey. Modern psychology agrees, "those who focused on the future were less likely to be depressed".
A balance between the past, present, and future is needed. And a balance between the self and others. Where you’ve been, where you are, and where you are going are all important. And who you’re with.
Doing this is especially important given my recent challenges with Graves' disease and how it has impacted my energy and my ability to get outside with the camera. And perhaps this will allow me to rejoin Frank's weekly photochallenge.
One weekend this summer, I was on a photography field trip to Boathouse Row along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. Our guide, Richard Sherman, obtained private access to Boathouse #4 and, early in the evening, to a launch boat (the little boats used by coaches) from which two photographers at a time were able to shoot the boathouses and Philly skyline from a different perspective.
Philadelphia's iconic "Boathouse Row" offers photographers a variety of colourful and interesting subjects, including the restored Fairmount Water Works, skyline shots of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the 19th-century boat houses and rowing shells along the Schuylkill River.
[exif id="22571"]
We had private access to Boathouse #4 and, early in the evening, to a launch boat (the little boats used by coaches) from which two photographers at a time will be able to shoot the boathouses and Philly skyline from a different perspective. From the launch boat, I got a unique water view of the boathouses. Some members of one of the boathouses were celebrating with dinner on the veranda.
The launch boat took us along the Schuylkill toward the lighthouse on Turtle Rock. This lighthouse was built in 1887 to aid traffic on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The view of the lighthouse from the launch boat was awesome. I was capturing some images of the lighthouse and zoomed in for a close-up when I noticed this couple basking in the glow of the late afternoon sun.
It seems that some debris came down the river and collected in an area in front of the boathouses. It formed a small island which has become inhabited by some ducks. The island also blocks the flow of water leading to the growth of a greenish plant. The ducks seem to like swimming in it.
I love this image. The instructor came running over to me. I had my camera pointed toward the Fairmount Water Works. He said, "Khürt, look up to your left". I wish I had a pano head.
The class had opportunities to exercise all our photographic muscles, from photographing people to shooting architectural details, from wide panoramas to close-ups, from high F-stops to shallow depth-of-field, from dynamic hand-held street shots to using tripods during "blue night" to capture the boathouses and their reflections on the water.
When the sun had disappeared completely for the day, the lights were turned on at Boathouse Row on the east bank of the Schuylkill River, just north of the Fairmount Water Works and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
