We got to see another former AEP boat pass through the area today, although this sighting was more of an accident. I was down at the river checking out how high the water had come up. At a previous stop I had seen a boat heading upriver. I didn't expect it to be passing my spot when I got to the boat ramp at the mouth of the Guyandotte River.
I was happy to see the Porter J. Furlong -- the former Mountain State of AEP. When it was owned by AEP, it was a frequent sight in these parts, pushing coal barges to and from AEP's plants in this area.
For this shot, I was tempted to get all artsy with it and see how far from reality I might want to take it. But when I looked at it, I thought, no, this is a nice shot of a beautiful boat. All I did to prepare it for this entry was to crop out some distracting elements and take the resolution down so it would load.
After I wrote that, I said to myself, let's take another view of this boat and get artsy. I tried by playing with noise levels and color saturation and all that, but when I got to this point, I couldn't do any more to it because I kind of liked it.
As I fiddled with this image, I zoomed in to see how parts of it looked. Then I saw these guys on the wheelhouse roof lowering the radar antennas. (Antennae for you language purists.)
The next shot in the sequence showed how tight things looked from the shore, what with the river being so high and the boat being so tall to begin with. Something happened between the shots and I accidentally turned off the autofocus, so that one came out pretty blurry zooned in. Becaise of that. I'm not doing anything with it for now.
But that's how an unplanned photo shoot came out.
