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Old Harbour in Rotterdam, NL

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
I went back to digging in the archives this evening and found these pictures I took at the old harbour of Rotterdam. This harbour is an open air museum for all kinds of retired boats and maritime equipment. It is one of my favorite spots in Rotterdam. I think some of you might enjoy seeing these so here it comes. C&C is welcome, as usual.


f30848.jpg




f30878.jpg


The next one is an extreme wide pano of the harbour, it is about 170 degrees wide. It is almost impossible to represent this using a rectilinear projection, so I had to compromise. I don't like the foreground but the whole gives a good impression of the situation there.

f30926.jpg


Cheers,
 

John Angulat

pro member
Hi Cem,

Still glad you're mining! These are nuggets well worth the time spent digging through the archives.
The detail in the first two is amazing. So much going on for my eyes!
I'm in agreement with you re: the pano.
I don't know if it is specifically the foreground.
To me, there's so much happening visually in the background, but it seems a little lost or overpowered.
Thoughts?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I went back to digging in the archives this evening and found these pictures I took at the old harbour of Rotterdam. This harbour is an open air museum for all kinds of retired boats and maritime equipment. It is one of my favorite spots in Rotterdam. I think some of you might enjoy seeing these so here it comes. C&C is welcome, as usual.


f30848.jpg


Cem,

I'm still at the Colburn School mapping out the production schedule for a fantastic and ambitious shoot that I'll be sharing. I just glimpsed. I must immediately remark on this first picture. Like an M. C. Escher drawing. We are lead around through and back again, an exceptional composition. Even that letter V is helpful in giving a boost to the movements!

Asher
 
Agree with Asher's thoughts about that first one, Cem. It is an absolute stunner! The boats have letters on their stacks that correspond with the name on their bows. Was this coincidence or standard practice when they were in service?

I can see why this is one of your favorite places in Rotterdam. The tower itself appears to be a great source of close up subjects for industrial abstracts. All three photos make me want to hop on a plane for a visit.

If you find more photos of the harbor in the archives, please share.
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Tom,

The boats have letters on their stacks that correspond with the name on their bows. Was this coincidence or standard practice when they were in service?
It might be that the letters are evocative of the company, and these boats have the company name as their name (in one case augmented by a number) - maybe they are the "flagships" (or the whole fleet!).

Best regards,

Doug
 
It might be that the letters are evocative of the company, and these boats have the company name as their name (in one case augmented by a number) - maybe they are the "flagships" (or the whole fleet!).

In this case these ships don't have names of a company (which would not be very customary here), but they more often have a name of a person, or a location, or a harbor+number (common with fishing boats), or some other meaningful identifier.

These 2 have the name of a location (Maashaven=river Maas harbor, and Volharding=perseverance, apparently no. 1 of a series).

The ship "Maashaven" was built in 1915 as a steam engine powered tugboat.

The "Volharding I" (built in 1924, and originally named "Harmonie IV" (=Harmony IV)) is a steam engine tugboat that used to work on the river Rhine going up and down the river to the German industrial Ruhr area, and mainly performed services in the Rotterdam harbor after WW II until 1967. She got her current name in 1951 when she was bought for harbor duty.

Cheers,
Bart
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Hi Cem

A quick note and not really C&C - the first picture is excellent. The complexity is enveloping and inclusive rather than offputting. The colour pallette helps I thinka dn the light tonality.

The second is fine, but not noteworthy against the first. As part of a longer series it might work well though.

I'm not really that happy with the third. Nothing wrong, but I tend to find very wide panos have too much foreground and distortion for me to appreciate them. i can see SAndrine's happy smile though.

MIke
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi John,

Hi Cem,

Still glad you're mining! These are nuggets well worth the time spent digging through the archives.
The detail in the first two is amazing. So much going on for my eyes!
I'm in agreement with you re: the pano.
I don't know if it is specifically the foreground.
To me, there's so much happening visually in the background, but it seems a little lost or overpowered.
Thoughts?
As I wrote myself, the 3rd one has no artistic merits. The reasons why I showed it are:
1) It provides the context of the harbour in one shot, so one gets a better idea of the location.
2) Although the casual lookers will not pay much attention to the projection (since the picture seems reasonably ordinary except for the foreground which bending), it is actually quite a challenge when one is dealing with a fov of 170 degrees. So there is some degree of technical pride involved as well. :)

Cheers,
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Asher,
..I'm still at the Colburn School mapping out the production schedule for a fantastic and ambitious shoot that I'll be sharing. I just glimpsed. I must immediately remark on this first picture. Like an M. C. Escher drawing. We are lead around through and back again, an exceptional composition. Even that letter V is helpful in giving a boost to the movements!
Firstly, I wish you all the luck in your planning for the ambitious shoot. I am sure you'll do fine and I am looking forward to hearing/seeing more soon.

The composition makes me want to look into the details all over, I am glad to hear that it has a similar effect on others as well. Mind you, it looks even better on print, as you can imagine.

FYI, this is a pano assembled from 3 vertical frames; each frame in return tone mapped from bracketed exposures. I have used shifting on my TS-E 24mm to lower the horizon. Stitching and projection was done in PT Assembler, my favorite pano sw.

Cheers
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Tom,

Agree with Asher's thoughts about that first one, Cem. It is an absolute stunner! The boats have letters on their stacks that correspond with the name on their bows. Was this coincidence or standard practice when they were in service?

I can see why this is one of your favorite places in Rotterdam. The tower itself appears to be a great source of close up subjects for industrial abstracts. All three photos make me want to hop on a plane for a visit.

If you find more photos of the harbor in the archives, please share.
I am glad you've liked the pictures. You were one of the members I was inherently referring to when I wrote that "some of you might enjoy it". I will post some more if I find any worthy ones, perhaps in another thread later. BTW, I have also been searching my river/barge pictures for you as I've promised last year. I still need to work out the selection, pp them and post. Have some more patience pls :)

Cheers,
 
Last edited:

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Doug, Bart,

..It might be that the letters are evocative of the company, and these boats have the company name as their name (in one case augmented by a number) - maybe they are the "flagships" (or the whole fleet!).

In this case these ships don't have names of a company (which would not be very customary here), but they more often have a name of a person, or a location, or a harbor+number (common with fishing boats), or some other meaningful identifier.

These 2 have the name of a location (Maashaven=river Maas harbor, and Volharding=perseverance, apparently no. 1 of a series).

The ship "Maashaven" was built in 1915 as a steam engine powered tugboat.

The "Volharding I" (built in 1924, and originally named "Harmonie IV" (=Harmony IV)) is a steam engine tugboat that used to work on the river Rhine going up and down the river to the German industrial Ruhr area, and mainly performed services in the Rotterdam harbor after WW II until 1967. She got her current name in 1951 when she was bought for harbor duty.
Thanks for the interesting and informative posts, as usual. I too have wondered what the significance of the letters were. I will ask the museum people next time I'm there.

Cheers,
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Mike,
...A quick note and not really C&C - the first picture is excellent. The complexity is enveloping and inclusive rather than offputting. The colour pallette helps I think and the light tonality.

The second is fine, but not noteworthy against the first. As part of a longer series it might work well though.

I'm not really that happy with the third. Nothing wrong, but I tend to find very wide panos have too much foreground and distortion for me to appreciate them. i can see SAndrine's happy smile though.
Well there is the dilemma we all face from time to time. Whether to just show the 1st one or also show the 2nd one which is quite good but not entirely up there as the 1st one. And while you are at it, why not show a 3rd or 4th so that a mini-series gets formed and the synergy effect helps elevate the "value" of the pictures. I usually opt for option a, but in this case it was intentional to also show the lesser ones.

Re. the pano, pls see my reply to John, a couple of posts before this one.

Cheers,
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cem,

What EV settings do you use for such tone mappings for pctures like #! which we all feel is remarkable? Then what software?

Asher
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
What EV settings do you use for such tone mappings for pctures like #! which we all feel is remarkable? Then what software?
In this particular case, the exposure bracketing was: +1EV, 0EV, -1EV. This is the most common setting I use, but sometimes the dynamic range of the scene asks for more. In that case, I then either shoot 5 or more brackets. When I am lazy or when the speed of the shoot is a factor, I then use 2EV steps for each bracket and take 3 automated brackets. Actually this is the only annoying shortcoming of my 5DII, which is crippled by Canon due to obscure marketing reasons to only take 3 bracketed exposures automatically. Whereas the 1D series can take up to 7 brackets in one press of the shutter. BTW, I make sure that my darkest bracket is ETTR first, so that there is no clipping in the highlights.

The software for the tone mapping I use is almost always the SNS-HDR. I am yet to see a better performing software than this. I have the Photomatix Pro 4, CS5, HDR Efex Pro and even some more HDR software, so I know what I am talking about.

Cheers,
 
Thanks Sandrine. Now let's see, why would "happy" come to mind? Hmm....

Let's see. This image seems like took on a Saturday morning. In terms of work environment (but you said it's a museum) it's very neat and colourful. We have a Harbour nearby (called Portslade) and it's full of clutter, timber, rusty machines and cranes.

I agree with the over crowded background in this one and the better one on the first but I still think the pano as a "scene" and the first as a "detail".

It seems happy because things run slow, the carriage on the rails look like moving smouthly, The man in the cabin is not rushing. Everything is tidied up like if it was Noody's personal harbour. A sort of vison of innocence. :)

* When I use to take life scenes in cities (In France and even here) I never have to ask myself if it was taken on Saturday, it's obvious, I don't know why. Everything is slow on Saturday but people are still going outside (Sunday they stay at home).
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Sandrine,

It was a rhetorical question, lol. But thanks for the insightful answer. Your powers of deduction are very good, it was indeed a Saturday. Or did I let the date linger in the exif somewhere?

Cheers,
 
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