The Awesome Force that is the Washington State Ferry System

I haven't posted images since my photography really took off with a series of windstorm images I took on October 18th of the M/V Cathlamet taking a huge wave over the bow from the Lighthouse Park in Mukilteo.

That day after work I walked outside to my car and was delighted to find the winds were blowing at an excellerating rate since lunch.

I battled my way down to Mukilteo's Lighthouse Park during the rush hour and felt torture as the last traffic light before the park haulted my trek within sight of the park and what I later learned was the M/V Cathlamet breaking waves. The light turned green before I could check the settings.

I took advantage of the time to put my camera together. After a lot of zipper noise and a few mechanical clicks I had my 30D attached to the Canon 100-400 L.

I pulled into the park and had enough time to jump out of my rig and point the camera hand-held at the Cathlamet.

What I call #2

The wave series was a total of 7 images and after the ferry came-about I ran back to my rig saying, "Please, Please, Please," and found that they looked to be in focus despite not having time to set the camera.

I then had time to get the mono-pod out to catch the next two I call:

Rock

I don't doubt that you may have seen these before. After sending them in to the local papers and getting no responce I decided they weren't as Wow as I thought so I posted them on a local snowmobile forum where my text, and images minus the copyright tag were put into an email by an unknown and sent around the net.

From there I've continued to see the beauty and raw power of the Washington State Ferry System.

Ferry Kitsap

The M/V Kittitas February 5th 2008

Titled: "Tilt"

I think I did get those in an e-mail from my Mother-in-Law. Glad I didn't just delete that one before looking.

Great job! #4 is the one that I remember the most. (I'm in Puyallup, by the way.)

Straight off the CF card and resized - taken at Sunset March 6th 2008. One of those days I just about left before sunset since it was so cloudy. .

Titled: "Ultra Contrast"

the picture above my post is simply awesome.

Great shots! I'm sure those aboard were puckering quite severely on some of those "rolls"

Good series!

ibdb wrote in post #5118730
I think I did get those in an e-mail from my Mother-in-Law. Glad I didn't just delete that one before looking.

Great job! #4 is the one that I remember the most. (I'm in Puyallup, by the way.)

Thanks ibdb - #4 is my favorite from that series too. What's too bad about that email is that it starts out something to the affect, "After work I went down to the....." so as it gets forwarded more and more people think the person who sent it to them was the photog, but the text was mine for a post on another forum. My anonymous 15 minutes I guess.

RadAL wrote in post #5118834
the picture above my post is simply awesome.

RadAL - Thanks a lot, I like that image a lot too. It's just what it looked like that day. So many times I take a shot like that, get home look at the image and it just doesn't look as good.

Thanks for all the comments.

Very good series. The Ultra Contrast is super.

The Tilt shot is also topnotch.

If a shot can give me goosebumps and make me not want to get onto a vessel like that, well - I guess you've nailed it.

Trackside, that Ultra Contrast is wonderful!

I love that last photo a lot. The others just seem to make me kind of sea sick. That looks like one rough ride there.

The Ultra Contrast is an amazing shot! You said thats straight out of the camera ?? WOW, what gear and settings did you use for that shot (10-22?)? I checked and the exif had beens stripped.

Awesome set of images, thanks for sharing these.