30 days, 30 pictures Part 16

 Crew change for the Glenn A. Hendon, part 2

30 days, 30 pictures Part 15

 Crew change for the Glenn A. Hendon at Harris Riverfront Park.

And another one tomorrow.

Winter's light

Light isn't everything in photography, but it's a lot.

I don't like most of what winter has to offer, but the light can be marvelous in late afternoon. Here's the M/V Tina Bowling of Crounse Corp. passing old Lock and Dam 27 this evening. This was taken in the last hour before sunset.

Crounse boats look especially good in this light. It must have to do with the shade of white paint they use.

In this particular photo, the presence of snow on the brown landscape helps. It's the reason I went, actually. About eleven years ago I got a photo of the Linda Reed coming down the river in winter. The snowy landscape played a big role in making that picture.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 14

 Sometimes you have your good camera with you when you're down by the river. Sometimes you don't and you see what would make a good image. You try your best.

In this case, I used a swing to frame the shot so the Crouse boat wouldn't be so lost.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 13

Getting a bridge photo. I use different exposure methods on landscape (or riverscape) shots like this so I can choose the best one later.

After I bought this camera a few years ago, I bought what I thought was a decent tripod for it. I was wrong, and the stupid thing fell apart a year later. So last summer I went to Walmart and bought a cheap one for $35 or so. It's done what I've asked of it, but someday I'll need to get a better one. You can be sure I'll check it for build quality first.

Text.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 12

 And here's a panorama taken at Harris Riverfront Park here in Huntington, West Virginia, last year.

This is another cell phone photo panorama. Tomorrow we do something different.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 11

 Pomeroy, Ohio, as seen across the river from the boat ramp at Mason, West Virginia.

Cell phone photo.

Pomeroy is the county seat of Meigs County, Ohio. The courthouse is built into a hill, and it is billed as the only courthouse in the world with ground-level entrances on all three floors. Pomeroy's other distinctions are that it has no four-way intersections and it is where the first coal barge in the United States was built.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 10

 This is the last of the ferry pictures.

Tomorrow we try something different.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 9

 Here's the August ferry as seen from the Ohio shore.

I wanted to emphasize the blue against the fog, so I desaturated every color but blue. One benefit of that is that the portable toilet's bright aqua green no longer stands out so boldly.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 8

 The ferry at Augusta, Kentucky, on a foggy October morning.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 7

Canada geese fly past the electricity transmission tower on the Kentucky side of the river at the Greenup Locks and Dam

30 days, 30 pictures Part 6

 The M/V Carrie Crisp of Crounse Corp. has just exited the Greenup Locks and Dam and is heading for the navigation channel.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 5

 Same photo as yesterday only in black and white.

I like this version better.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 4

 M/V Garry Lacey pushing a couple of barges in the fog.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 3

 The Bartow Jones Bridge over the Kanawha River, connecting Point Pleasant and Henderson, West Virginia. The bridge is at the mouth of the Kanawha.

The bridge has been in service for about 25 years, but I still catch myself calling it by the name of its predecessor — the Shadle Bridge.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 2

 The M/V Bridget Cauley catches the last bit of fog as it approaches the Meldahl Locks and Dam downbound.

With a bit of HDR (high dynamic range) processing to accentuate the sky.

30 days, 30 pictures Part 1

It's time to do something different. I went through the past 12 months of photos and picked out 30 to showcase over the next 30 days. Beginning tomorrow, they go live at 6 p.m. daily. Some will have explanations or captions. Some won't. If there are some you like, let me know. If there are some you don't like, let me know.

We kick off with a photo that probably doesn't need a caption. The only enhancement I did was to crop it down a little and give it a touch of HDR processing.

Happy Gregorian New Year

 I'm not a fan of starting the new year in the dead of night in the dead of winter, so I'll probably celebrate the new year on April 1.

Anyway, here's my first photo of the new calendar year.