One Big Ship

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Photographing HMS Victory is not easy. Stand back far enough to see the whole vessel and you tend to get smaller buildings in the shot as well! This was my first glimpse of the historic Georgian warship as I walked through the public access museum area of Portsmouth Naval Dockyard, in the 'Gunwharf Quays' district, on a very grey day in December 2006. The sheer size of the ship is stunning, she towers into the sky and is well over 200 feet long, a triumph of timber engineering. Exposure times were long on this day as the chip dealt with low light levels and intermittent rain, and composition was always going to be a compromise between seeing the ship unobstructed but only in close-up, or longshots that were visually cluttered. Sharpness and colour were enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Last of the "Wooden Walls"

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Now here is living history: the last surviving warship of Georgian times, HMS Victory, which though she has been preserved in drydock as a British national treasure also remains a commissioned vessel in the Royal Navy. The Captain and Executive Officer have reserved parking places next to the ship... This ship, Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, typifies the 'wooden walls of England' that protected the country from invasion in the warlike 17th and 18th centuries, and is the technological ancestor of 1869's HMS Warrior, which lies a few hundred yards away at the Historic Portsmouth Naval Dockyard. I visited on a grey day in December, 2006, a day when rain was sweeping through in light, cold showers and the overcast made exposures difficult. Note that the sky is burned out to white to properly expose the ship. She was simply too big to frame the whole ship properly amongst the jumble of buildings surrounding the drydock, but I captured many excellent detail closeups. Sharpened, contrast- and colour-enhanced for publication. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Steel Lookout

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This is a truly remarkable piece of modern engineering and architecture, fusing the requirement for the practical with an amazing aesthetic. It's the control tower overlooking Portsmouth Harbour, a few hundred yards from the railway station and the Historic Portsmouth Naval Dockyard. Officially named Spinnaker Tower, it stands 170 meters tall, located at Gunwharf Quays, and is an icon visible for miles around. The aesthetic design mimics the mast and spinnaker of a racing yacht, a maritime thing for a maritime city. This frame was taken on a grey evening in December, 2006, one of several as I tried to frame the gigantic structure in some meaningful way as the light failed. This shot, a high telephoto range close-in on the upperworks, captured the control decks high on the mast, and the burn-in of the lights tells you how late in the evening it was. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Tall Ship And Towering Sky

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This photograph I find so reminiscent of the maritime artistic tradition of the 19th century that sometimes I have to blink and remind myself I took it. It was December 2006 and the S5600 and I were in Portsmouth for a day visit, specifically Portsmouth Historic Naval Dockyard, to see HMS Victory, the Mary Rose, and this one, HMS Warrior. In many ways she is in the best condition of any of them; for one thing, she's afloat! In 1869 Warrior was the fastest, most powerful battleship in the world, and her restoration (8 million pounds, if I remember correctly) has returned her to amazing condition. I took many photos that day, but this one, with the sun pretty much gone and a towering Atlantic sky coming up over the vessel's masts and rigging, while the low tide stranded many small craft on the mud, was so powerfully evocative of the art of Turner and his ilk, that it feels like a 19th century scene. Yet within half a mile were a modern aircraft carrier and a futuristic harbour control tower: past and present can coexist in the most amazing ways. The camera was supported for a steady image, and the frame was digitally enhanced only slightly, some sharpening, some gamma correction to bring out mid-tone areas, and tweaks of contrast and colour saturation. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic exposure. Image by Mike.