San Diego – Star of India
This is the Star of India, an iron-hulled sailing ship built in 1863 and currently home-ported in the Maritime Museum of San Diego. The Star of India was originally named Euterpe for the muse of music. She was built for the Wakefield Nash & Company of Liverpool for the Indian jute trade. She was renamed the Star of India in 1906 by the Alaska Packers Association while she was employed in the salmon industry. The Start of India came to San Diego in 1926 to be part of a planned museum and aquarium. Restoration wasn’t started until 1957 and the Star of India didn’t sail until 1976. The Star of India is the fourth oldest ship in the United States and the oldest to sail regularly. I try to drop by and visit the ship when I’m in San Diego. See also: Five Frames of Pipes from San Diego.
Tucson – Saguaro Cactus
Here is a crested saguaro in the Bajada Loop Nature Trail in the Sabino Canyon Recreational Area near Tucson. Crested saguaros are relatively rare. This one is just a short walk from the Sabino Canyon Recreational Area Visitor Center. When I lived in Tucson, Sabino Canyon was just a few minutes drive from my abode. My wife and I went there regularly to hike and just “be” in the desert. I took this photo while we were touristing around Tucson in the summer of 2019. Unlike most of my travels, which were motivated by scientific meetings, this trip was simply to enjoy the city.
Orlando – Hogwarts, Hogsmeade
The sign says it all, Hogsmeade and Hogwarts. We were in Orlando for the usual scientific meeting and decided that we (meaning me, a giant Harry Potter fan) couldn’t miss the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the Universal Orlando Resort. We started in Diagon Alley, had lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, and took the Hogwart’s Express to Hogsmeade. This shot is from Hogsmeade. That’s Hogwarts castle in the background. See also: Five Frames of the Wizarding World.
New Orleans – Creole Queen
This is the paddle wheel of the Creole Queen just after sunrise. The Creole Queen is a paddle-wheel riverboat that does sightseeing and dinner-jazz cruises on the Mississippi. She isn’t sailing right now due to COVID-19. I caught her paddle wheel silhouetted against the morning clouds the last time I was in town. See also: Five Frames from New Orleans, Five Frames of Street Photography from New Orleans, Seaborn Selected for the Texas Photographic Society Members Only Show, and Five Frames of People from Five Cities.
Houston – Self Portrait
That’s me on the left. My wife, Kathryn, is on the right. I look a little like an alien. We are reflected in the edge of a large shiny sculpture, Cloud Column by Anish Kapoor. I featured this sculpture in an earlier post, Five Frames of Shiny. Cloud Column resides in the Brown Foundation, Inc. Plaza at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). I have featured another sculpture by Anish Kapoor in other posts: Five More Frames from the High and Five Frames from the High, 2020.
These photos were taken with a Canon 6D or 6DII wearing the Canon 50mm f1.8 or the Canon 24-70mm f2.8. the photos were processed from RAW data using Darktable, which is free darkroom software available for Windoze, Mac, and Linux.
I like all of these. How did you get the sky/background to white out in the Hogwarts and Saguaro pictures?
I took the Hogwarts picture on a cloudy, drizzly day. The sky was white, so that was easy. The saguaro picture was taken in bright daylight. The interesting, crested, part of the cactus is in shadow so I had to increase the exposure to get detail in the crested part. Increasing the exposure to get the shaded part meant that the open sky was very bright indeed. The color in the sky just washed out.