Monday, December 17, 2018

Helping out a real photographer


So this morning as I got ready to go in to work, I asked myself if I want to bring my camera. No, I said, it would just be in the way and there's probably not anything to shoot. So I get there and before I get settled in the boss comes into my office and says a photographer on her way in saw a big thing being pushed by two boats down at Ashland. She was getting photos and she wondered if I would know anything about it.

As he described it, I realized it was one of the pieces of the Shell cracker on its way to Monaca, and here I left my own camera at home. We talked it over and I explained that there would not be many good shooting opportunities until the boats got to Huntington because of where the sun is relative to the river before 1 p.m. and because of the limited river access between the office and where the boats would be.

Anyway, we figured we would get some photos from the sidewalk on the 6th Street bridge. I met her up there and pointed out various landmarks on the bridge that would help her with her shooting.

Perhaps I should mention that the photographer, Lori Wolfe, is the daughter of a man who formerly was a captain of the M/V Harllee Branch Jr. She's also my favorite working photojournalist.

As the boat appeared, I got off some shots with my free cell phone. I made the mistake of holding it vertically. That wide angle lens really messed things up on a lot of  images, such as these.



Lori and I went up the Ohio side and got a few shots of the boats as they passed.



Later we went up to the boat ramp at the mouth of the Guyandotte River. The river  was up, so most of the area was under water.

If you want to check out Lori's photos, the link is here. Prepare to be impressed.