The Sailing Ships Of San Diego

We recently visited the sailing ships at the Maritime Museum of San Diego (MMSD) while visiting our daughter. The MMSD has a nice collection of ships, most of which you can go on and a few that also give harbor tours. They have 4 sailing ships, 2 submarines (1 Russian and 1 US), 2 steam-powered ships, and 2 powered ships. Of this collection, four vessels have earned historic distinction on the National Register. Although, this wasn’t really a photography trip, of course I managed to get a little photography in too.

The MMSD and the sailing ships are great photography subjects. Two ships in particular standout. The real star of the museum is the Star of India, the world’s oldest active sailing ship. She’s the largest of MMSD’s sailings ships and in my opinion the most beautiful and interesting. The co-star of the museum (again, in my opinion), is the San Salvador, a replica of the ship that under the command of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, arrived at the port we now call San Diego on September 28, 1542. Unfortunately, on the day we were there, we didn’t get to tour the San Salvador as it had been chartered for a funeral service.

The Allure Of Sailing Ships To Photographers

Photographers particularly find sailing ships alluring. Partly it’s the majesty and simple beauty of the ships. Part of it is also the lore and history that surrounds them. For photographer, an added feature is the sails and rigging of the ships. They combine in a myriad of lines, shapes and patterns that capture our eye. In this regard, one of the nice things about the Star of India was that she had some of her sails set despite being docked. This made for excellent photo ops and I certainly wasn’t going to waste that opportunity. Here are some of the Star of India.

The Sunset Shot

The other classic shot of sailing ships is a sunset shot. Additionally, if one ship is good, two has to be better, right? This shot was an unexpected find. We had an early dinner in a restaurant next to the MMSD. When we left the restaurant at the last stages of sunset I was presented with this composition. The Star of India with lights strung in its rigging highlighting it against the dark sky. On the left was the San Salvador, silhouetted against the last color of the setting sun. As it turned out, the San Salvador was the perfect secondary subject for this composition.

Getting The Shot

I had to act fast as the light was quickly disappearing. In addition, I was concerned that the rigging lights would be blown out. If I did expose them properly would the rest of the photo be too dark. Although software does allow you to pull a lot of detail from the left side of the histogram it can come at a high price, added noise. I took a small series of shots including 3 of this particular composition before the light disappeared and my family threatened to toss me into the harbor. The key was carefully checking the histogram on the camera and making the necessary adjustments. The details of the shot are:

• Canon 5D Mk III, Canon EF 24–105mm f/4L is II USM Lens at 24mm
• 1/50 seconds at f/9, ISO 6400, handheld

To be sure, there was some noise but fortunately not enough to overwhelm the capabilities of the software to remove it. Perhaps because of the angle I was shooting towards the San Salvador and possibly some wave action I noticed a slight tilt to its masts which I corrected with the Photoshop transform tool. The only other major adjustment I made was to darken the lower right-hand corner to de-emphasize the people on the sidewalk. Additionally, there were few of the background lights that had to be toned down to make them less distracting. All the other processing and cropping was rather standard.

Leave A Comment And Share

Take a look. I’d love to hear your comments and feedback. What’s been your experience photographing sailing ships? Please leave a comment in the comment box below.

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