It has taken me a lot longer to get into the mood to put up this post than I originally thought that it would. I finished going through the 805 photos that I took on our Bahamas Cruise vacation, and cut it down to the 475 that I decided were keepers. But then I got all tied up in researching everything and anything that an engineer “needs to know” before ordering his next computer. I finally ordered everything this afternoon, so now I can finally turn my attention back to getting this blog post up!
Here is one of the first photos that I took on that vacation. This is our cabin on the Carnival Magic – our home for the next 7 days.
Reminder: You can always view any photo at a larger size by just clicking on it. You will then need to use your browser’s “Back Button” to return to my story.
I took that photo right after we unpacked our luggage and neatly put everything away into the storage areas that they provided within our cabin. Barb had some time to relax with her Sudoku puzzles, and I got to play with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera.
I only show that photo above to show the setting for the rest of the photos in this post. The rest of the photos were taken on the bed. Now get your mind out of the gutter! This is a “family oriented” blog (or at least G-Rated)…
Living on a cruise ship is very much like living in a hotel or motel. While you are out and about during the day, people come into your room and clean the place up. They make the bed, change your towels, empty the trash, and in the evening, they always leave a folded towel on your bed.
Now they do not fold the towels that they leave on your bed the same way that you or I fold our towels. No sirree…
When I went on my first cruise, which was our honeymoon in 2000, the room steward did this same thing. I really thought that we had a really special room steward! But now that we have been on our 10th cruise in 13 years, I can only say that EVERY room steward on a cruise ship does this. It must be a mandatory requirement for their job.
I brought my Gitzo GT1542T Traveller tripod with me on this vacation, but it never left our cabin. I only used it for the photos that I took of these folded towel works of art. All of these photos required a shutter speed of between 1/4 of a second up to 1.6 seconds in duration, so the tripod was a must.
This next photo was the only one (besides the opening photo showing our cabin) that was taken during daylight hours, where diffused sunlight was coming in from the windows, backlighting my subject.
The room steward left this one for us in the afternoon, while we were Segway riding along the beach in Nassau, Bahamas. Later that evening, he left this one for us.
The main consideration to be taken into account when photographing white towels is to remember to override the camera’s light meter, and overexpose from what it suggests. I added +2/3 to +1 stop of exposure. When I used Aperture Priority mode, I just added some Exposure Compensation. When I used Manual mode, I just “overexposed” from what the meter indicated.
If I didn’t add the extra exposure, the towels would have turned out gray in the photos. If I had added too much exposure, the entire white towel would have turned completely white, and you would not be able to see the texture in the towel.
I wanted to share these photos with you, but didn’t want to spend the hours to write up a big story to go along with them. So, I’m keeping this short and sweet!
Now when will that UPS delivery guy get here with my new computer?