Titanic & Docks

I took a run over to the new Titanic Museum that is opening this March to see how it was coming along and by chance they were just laying the massive sign at the front of the building with two cranes.  It seemed like a big deal with all sorts of associated press there as well as photographers from the Titanic trust as well.  I must admit that pulling up on the Vespa and whipping out my 450D, I felt like (and I'm sure looked) way under prepared, but I still stayed and took a few shots.

 The biggest problem was that everyone there had their hardhats and hi-vis bibs on and without this fairly useless 'safety' equipment (lets be honest, if that 25 tonne metal sign was to fall on someone no amount of hardhat or yellow bib wearing would make any difference.  They would be hammered into the ground like a luminous tent peg!) I was quite restricted to where I could actually stand and shoot.  I ended up just taking a few snaps of the sign going in and the museum itself.  They weren't that great though with the cranes and a lamp post getting mostly in the way.  Going back to my previous post about buying a new lens, I think with this experience I am leaning towards the telephoto option.  It would have meant that I could get a range of shots on the day, but I could still use it for portrait work if I needed.  Anyway, here is what I came away with.

 When I was leaving I decided to head down to the end of the docks to have a look around as I've never actually been past the Arc apartments before, and down near the bottom end of the estate there was a bit of a gap in the hedge where you could walk out onto a small jetty and see over to the Bombardier building.  Just by chance there was a ship moored there and the water was fairly calm so I took a quick shot of the view over the water.  I like the image as the sky isn't too blown out (not using any filters with my camera yet) and the reflection on the water is quite cool.  I tried several different focal lengths but the 18mm end seemed to give the best result.  I know the rule of thirds suggests that I should have had either more sky or more water, and the boat shouldn't have been bang in the middle of the frame, but I just couldn't get any other composition to work as there was a defunct pier to the left and the building to the right wasn't that interesting. 

So this is what I came away with from my day.  I took around 100 photos, but most were average at best and these were the two that I actually don't mind looking at myself.

It's Ryan's housewarming this Saturday and I'm working until 4, so I plan on taking my camera down and taking a couple of pictures of everyone, mostly for posterity and a bit because I still haven't taken pictures of anyone in a solely photographic capacity.

So, I will get some of them up maybe on Monday.