Tug Boat Night Shift

(March 18th, this photo was chosen the 'Picture of the Day' in Steve's Digicams, a great digital camera site. Thanks Steve!). It was snowing quite a lot as I went to see these nice tug boats which were located only a couple of hundred meters away from the president's castle (Helsinki is so cosy a place!). The sailor was doing his stuff on the deck, and as I wanted to have some reference to the size of the boat but long exposure would mess all movement, I hailed him "hi there, could you stop all movement for 20 seconds so I could get a nice photo of you and the boat?". He immediately got the break and I took the photo. Some could argue that this sort of "fixing the scene" is not good, but my view is that if there are these sort of simple and polite ways of affecting people without changing them in apperance or otherwise manipulating them, why not do it? Now I can get him a print where his face is recognizable, instead of a picture presenting "phantom and the boat". Anyway, I like this picture a lot for its gentle exposure, mood of winter and depth of the harbour, so here it is now in my gallery.