Taking pictures from a ship is like standing on a tall building. The vantage is nearly as good as a drone but without the need for an FAA license.
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The view of Miami Beach from the deck of a cruise-ship leaving port
I took this onboard the Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas as we left Miami on a three-day cruise. There were high winds on that voyage, and we had to skip one of our ports. The other port was Nassau where we did dock safely and enjoyed a day exploring.
Perhaps because of the rough conditions, I got a few good photos using the perspective of the ship that I wouldn’t usually get. Then, on the final morning, we arrived back here to Miami at sunrise, and I got a few last photos from the top deck. After that, it was back to ground level.
This was taken from a water taxi as we passed a cruise ship leaving the port of Venice. I’ve been on several cruises and the port of Venice is the most scenic I’ve seen. This was not the ship I was on but if you look close you’ll see all the passengers lined up along the rail. They’re looking out at the city of Venice.
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Cruise Ship Leaving the Port of Venice
I was on an even larger ship that left a few hours later and the scene must have looked similar. There were so many people standing on one side that the hull tilted towards the city. It was the most amazing feeling; the ships are so large it never occurred to me that the weight of the passengers could make it tilt.
The procedure for docking a cruise ship in Venice involves being towed by two or more tugboats. The tugs are massive machines. There is one that pulls from the bow and one or more that guide the stern. Because they move so slow you have a perfect vantage of the city. I stood on the thirteenth deck and looked down upon the rooftops. It was one of the highlights of the cruise.
In any case, this was just a random shot with an interesting perspective. It’s one thing to stand on the top deck and look out, and quite another to see it pass by from the water level.
When sailing you find yourself looking for signs at sea. Any kind of sign will do; weather signs, signs of land and signs of life. Open water doesn’t have the familiar frames of reference, so unconsciously our minds are pre-occupied with building one.
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Signs at Sea – when at sea we look for signs of life
This is not news to anyone who sails. The frame of reference for a sailor is different. Sailors know how to read signs and surely there are many more signs that we’re not even aware of.
This was taken as I sailed on a cruise ship towards Venice. To the combination of clouds, water and land on the horizon I added birds from another image. They were not in the original but for me they completed the scene.
Walking to the train one morning in Vancouver I noticed this cruise ship at dock. It arrived a few hours earlier and was preparing for another voyage to Alaska. A common site in the summer but nonetheless it looked awesome in the morning light so I took a few photos; this is what I saw in my mind. Let me explain…
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What I Saw in My Mind – From Vancouver BC
I spent a lot of time on this photo to make it look like what you see here. The original photo didn’t look so pretty. It had a lot of distractions, including other boats and a parking lot in the lower right. So I manipulated it to make it look like what I thought I saw. What we perceive is usually different than what we see. In other words, we perceive what we want to see and have a tendency to screen the rest; so this image is now closer to what I thought I saw.
At the time I only noticed the boat, it stood out because it wasn’t there the day before. I also noticed the soft light of the morning sun reflecting on the side. I thought to myself that it was an awesome scene, but when I looked at the image later there were other things I didn’t remember seeing, like the parking lot for instance. Rather than get disappointed and throw it away, it became a challenge for me to see if I could replicate my initial impression.
To my way of thinking the practice of photography is an expression of art. If I just want to record an event I snap a photo with my phone. But “photography” can be more than that. That doesn’t mean it should always be manipulated, but it should tell a story. In this case I did indeed manipulate it so that I could convey the story what I perceived in my mind on that summer morning in Vancouver.
On the last day of our three-day trip I got up before dawn to walk around the top deck of the ship. This walkway seemed like a portal on a space ship. I think cruise ships are like spaceships, at least like the big ones in the movies. In my mind a proper space ship has facilities to take tourist to different planets. Then at each location they probably dock on he dark side of the moon and take little excursions to the planet. You never know, truth can be stranger than fiction.
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Cruise Ships Are Like Spaceships – Taken before dawn on Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas
Anyway, taking pictures of a cruise ship seems to work out better in the early morning. During the day and late into the night the decks are always crowded. But because everyone is up partying so late it’s a guarantee there are few if any people up early. That’s when you can get all those architectural details they build on to the ships; like these colorful arches for example.
Also, in the morning the crew is usually washing the decks and the sheen of wet surfaces enhances the light with reflections. Having said all that, I suppose the real trick is waking up early. Since this was the last day and we were scheduled to get off early I had to get up; I might not be so eager otherwise. About a half hour after this we pulled into the Port of Miami and I saw more cool things I wouldn’t normally see during the day.
This is the central foyer of the Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas. I took this early one morning which is the only time that no people are present. The central column is about eight stories high and is serviced by elevators and stairwells. In the evening this is augmented with a colorful lighting display. I found this perspective through a glass portal at the very top.
Central Foyer on Royal’s Radiance of the Seas
At the very bottom is a bar, the next up is a Starbucks, then a champagne bar and so on up the levels. There are game rooms, libraries, areas for lounging, each level is unique. Often we would lean against the banister and watch the band playing music below or perhaps watch a demonstration on cake making. Certainly there are things to do outside, but on an Alaskan cruise there is plenty to do indoors as well.
This is a small ship by todays standards but it’s a sister of the first ship I ever saw, the Jewel of the Seas. I was and still am amazed that this type of space and architecture can exist on an ocean-going vessel. Yet to the truly big ships this is unremarkable. I’m a simple man, and to me, this is really really big. Getting on a bigger ship seems like maybe going to the mall with a hotel that floats. The sea is almost incidental.
As we were sailing out of Skagway the Star Princess remained parallel to ours for about thirty minutes. The straight is not that wide and the sight of two massive ships in the light of dusk silently passing through must have been quite the thing. Only these areas are uninhabited save for the wildlife, so we were unnoticed save for the eagles sitting on treetops.
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Star Princess in Alaska
There were four or five cruise ships in Skagway that day, I believe this is the same one I posted a picture of earlier. It’s hard to tell because in that picture I was standing next to it on the dock and it’s hard to get the full perspective up close.
The low light capabilities of the Sony A7RII allowed me to capture this at ISO4000. These kind of shots still amaze me when I think that just a few years when this type of shot was impossible. My preference is to shoot in low light, I prefer the moodiness of it.
My ship was Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas. I wonder if there was someone on the Princess ship watching our ship and taking a similar shot. If you’re out there somewhere let’s swap photos so we can see our own boat, eh?
This weekend I was in Fort Lauderdale where I captured this ship entering the Port of the Everglades. This was just one of a half dozen or so I watched from the beach in the predawn hours. My hotel faced the Atlantic so that I could see the ships all lined up single file as they waited to enter the port. The preceding evening it was the reverse with the ships streaming out in the opposite direction.
I walked down to the very end of the beach along the jetty at the entry to the port. Standing there the ships pass so close I could probably hit them with a beach ball. It’s a strange feeling standing there as a tremendous amount of mass passes only meters away. It overloads my simple mind. I’ll bet the people in those apartment buildings have quite the show each day.
The orange light coming over the apartment buildings is the light from the port bouncing off of the clouds we had Sunday morning. The whole scene was surreal and totally unexpected. I love little surprises like that, especially when I’m out with my camera. It’s been said that photography is fifty percent just getting out and putting yourself in a place where something might happen. Sometimes it works out and of course I get really excited when it does, kind of like hitting a great golf shot. This image for me is a three hundred yard tee-shot straight down the middle of the fairway. I better stop now before I start mixing my metaphors.
