Tag: photographers

Posted on

Meeting and Photographing Ships on the St. Clair River

Photographing ships on the St. Clair River on a blustery day.

It is not often that far distant art photographers with a similar passion for photographing ships actually get to meet in person. Mary Bedy lives in a perfect Michigan location to photograph the freighters, ships and boats that ply the waters of the Great Lakes. Bill Swartwout lives on the Atlantic coast and is only able to photograph ships while on vacation somewhere. The passing freighters along the coast are far too distant to shoot but, fortunately, he also enjoys shooting bridges.

bill swartwout and mary bedy on the boardwalk in St. Clair, Michigan
Bill Swartwout and Mary Bedy on the boardwalk in St. Clair, MI (photo by Nancy Swartwout)

Bill and his wife, Nancy, were vacationing in western Michigan and had planned to visit the city of Frankenmuth, MI on the way home. Frankenmuth was close to St. Clair – so a lunch meetup was arranged for the next day. The three of us met at the Voyageur Inn on the St. Clair River and boardwalk – the very same boardwalk that offers Mary a wonderful vantage point to photograph any ship that passes from Lake Huron to Lake Erie (or vice versa).

We opted for a window table, of course, and during our time there we had the opportunity to see four freighters pass by the boardwalk and restaurant. Well one was really the barge, Joseph H. Thompson with pusher-tugboat, Laura L. VanEnkevort – but it “looked” similar to a freighter.

Joseph H. Thompson Barge by Mary Bedy

A rare occurrence of ships passing on the river…

After a wonderful lunch and great conversation we move out into the cold and blustery October day to the boardwalk for the obligatory selfies (photo session). As we were doing that there were two ships approaching and doing something very seldom seen. They were passing by one another right in front of us. There must be something to be said about two artists who live 700 miles apart meeting at this location and point in time.

Freighters Michipicoten and CSL Laurentien at st. clair mi
Freighters Michipicoten and CSL Laurentien are about to pass, port-to-port, on the St. Clair River in front of the boardwalk in St. Clair, Michigan

This was , indeed, a wonderful opportunity for two photographers, passionate about their art, to be able to meet in person. Before this day they only knew one another through their common use of Fine Art America to produce their photography as Print-On-Demand wall art and home decor items.

Find wall art photographs by Mary Bedy and Bill Swartwout

See Mary Bedy’s ship photographs here: https://mary-bedy.pixels.com/collections/freighters+ships+and+boats

See Bill Swartwout’s ship images here: https://bill.pixels.com/collections/boats+and+ships

Posted on

Photographing the Miami Skyline

This was posted on a popular forum for artists/photographers: “Where is a good spot to photograph the Miami Skyline?”

There were, as to be expected, several answers and suggestions. The first one was, “from a boat.” Well, of course, that struck home to me – because I did have the opportunity to shoot a Miami sunset from the deck of a cruise ship after we headed south from the Port Everglades Cruiseport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The sun was low in the sky as we glided past the Miami coastline and the cloud cover diffusing the sun gave meaning to the term “Golden Hour” for photographers.

Golden Miami Skyline Silhouette
South Florida Skyline Sunset Silhouette
South Florida Coast Sunset Silhouette

There are a few other choices, modifications if you will, for these South Florida sunset silhouette photographs. I have created various post-processing edits to give you a choice of overall tone or color. Use the link(s) below to see them all.

Link to Pictorem for prints (free shipping): Click Here.

Link to Fine Art America for prints: Click Here.

Some of the other answers from forum members at Fine Art America were to search Google with that exact question or to use Google maps to look for areas.

Note, please, that finished and delivered prints will not have a watermark. In addition, you get a 30-day satisfaction guarantee from both of the production companies.