Charles T. Low Photography

The current iteration of the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, as part of the Great Lakes Seaway.

Having lived here in Brockville, Ontario, for over three decades, I started serious photography of passing ships around 2005. With our pandemic-lockdown travel-restrictions, ships have recently featured in my work more prominently.

Think of it as the world, coming to me.

Plus I simply find them such fascinating and beautiful machines.

I will attempt to avoid showing ship photographs which have previously appeared in this blog.

Note, in the photograph of Frontenac, some guy joy-riding up on top of the bridge. (Sheesh.)

Note with Algoisle, by the way, the well-known telephoto compression illusion. Although the Brockville Narrows is narrow, it isn't that narrow.

Now, I think that those who know me will find this consistent: I strive, with my ship-photography, for art. I monitor and contribute to several fascinating social media groups of ship-watchers, showcasing the work of many local, skilled photographers (and if you would like to know more, then contact me), but I do this primarily as an artistic, more than documentary, endeavour.

That means that I am always looking for a new way to present a ship, and that of course gets harder as the years roll by; and, although new only for new's sake alone has never resonated with me, I do find myself pulled to new, if more artistic.

So, I want something new about the light, or the composition, or the background, or indeed about the ship itself.

And of course, I continue to work at other forms of art-photography. I consider myself by no means a ship-specialist; I consider myself a photographer who lives near an international seaway, one which provides an amazing and ongoing pageant of passing ships.

So, as an art-photographer, how many times can I make a competent image of a freighter, and remain satisfied? I think that the oft-quote number of 10,000 might suffice, which I have not even remotely approached. Nonetheless, I currently seek that little extra something, and in this case, a minute later, that ship disappeared into fog.

That effect may please you; I know that for many viewers, it breaks some preconceptions about how a photograph should look. It does accurately reflect the actual scene, plus it tells a story of real shipping, which carries on in all kinds of weather.

Oh, and ... you may notice the ten-year gap between ship photographs. I have many hundreds of photographs of ships from those intervening years, and I quite like them. But I could not possibly show everything in the space available.

Just the very bow of H. Lee White, in the frame, with the far shore in fog, creates (for me) another new, and appealing, effect.

You won't see the river in such a flat calm very often, to provide a reflection such as that of CSL Niagara.

Also, if not photographing the entire ship, I and many others quite naturally visually isolate the bow, with its impressive bone-in-the-teeth bow-wave, but the superstructure aft often makes a striking image as well.

Many of you will know how much I enjoy low-light photography (no subliminal association with my name intended), and that can work very well for stationary subjects. Ships however generally move, and surprisingly quickly. I wrestle with this, sometimes raising the ISO, sometimes trying to pan, and then it occurred to me just to go with it. For this I used an eight-second exposure.

(For an explanation of ISO, see Digital Camera Basics [Again]! - 2.1MB.)

I find the John D. Leitch photograph different enough for me, on many levels! I will leave the details to your imagination.

We see the occasional ship trundling by, carrying wind-turbine blades, but not many with the new and revolutionary design of Symphony Star.

These ships passing, around sunset (which occurred far off to the right), over 1.5 km away with a telephoto lens, through heat haze, made the photograph different enough for me, and ... still pleasing.

Above, they meet, and below, they part.

I have also posted a short video of the ships passing.

In showing another motion-blur photograph (two-second exposure), quite different from the earlier one, I very much like this of Fraserborg, and so far on social media, the response has been ... muted. Again, we all quite normally look at things through our own (mental) lenses.

And sometimes, one just needs a little context.

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So, do you see how ships compel me to photograph them? Finding variations at times makes me struggle, and then something new presents itself.

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Thank you all so much for reading.

Charles T. Low
Photographer
Blog #66

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