Exploring The Dry Dock

The Nanaimo Boatyards is home to a remarkable old building that holds a dry dock for large boats to come in and get some maintenance done.  I don’t know how old it is but is there ever a lot of character in the building.  The textures and tones were so interesting and they were all the more so when I converted the image to black and white.  As I was looking at the image at full magnification when I began to prepare this post I realized that I may have had more than one image here.  There were little stories that the picture was telling throughout the building so I cropped in tight on some of the interesting areas.  Check them out below, you definitely give away some resolution but I think the results are pretty interesting.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Support

It’s been a long time since I have been posting regularly and that is largely because all of my gear was stolen and I was waiting for it to be replaced by my insurance company.  I’d like to thank Steve Julien who was a big help.  He’s a fantastic photographer check him out here.  On my first shoot I went out to a local marina and I came across this image underneath one of the piers.  The texture and tone of the wooden posts was very compelling against the glassy smooth ripples of the water and I wanted a treatment that would emphasize this.  I pulled the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro and pulled up the contrast and the structure while maintaining the silver tones in the wood.  Without really intending to this gave the water a glassy smooth texture that contrasted beautifully with rough wood.  The pier on left provided enough visual weight to anchor all of the visual activity on the right side of the frame but I didn’t want it to be distracting so I darkened it substantially.  I think this gives the eye an entry point in the left side of the frame but allows the eye to move into the more complicated structures on the right side.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Harbour

Nanaimo's boats lie in harbour under a dramatic sky. Canon EOS XSi EF-S 17-85mm at 17mm f/22 1/125 ISO 200