The Ferry at Mukilteo

My wife Merril has a term she coined to describe a certain type of light at sunset. Right after heavy overcast, the sun will break through and illuminate everything in the foreground very brightly while the scene in the distance will remain in deep shadow. It is a lighting effect we saw very often when we lived in Portland, so it is forever referred to in our house as "Oregon Light".

I always love when this happens, so Tuesday as I was poking around the Mukilteo Ferry dock and the light broke through, I worked quickly, knowing it wouldn't last for long. As predicted, the light only lasted for a minute or so before dipping back into the overcast. I managed to shoot several images of the ferry illuminated by the sun before the entire scene faded to a soft slate blue. I ran under some abandoned docks I had found earlier and shot several frames on the small waves swishing around the abandoned coloumns.

Before I left, I noticed the lights of the ferry were contrasting with the stormy sky to the north. Another few frames of rather long duration finished the evening. Cropping the image to a panoramic format helped create a more dynamic image.

The best part of the entire shoot was not a single image required any adjustments in photoshop beyond tweaking the exposure or cropping.

Please remember all images are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without permission.