Return of the riverboat

The American Queen docked in Red Wing, Minnesota on Saturday night. Wow...two posts for two different subjects from the same day!

Shooting this boat at this time proved to be really challenging. If you look around the top of the boat, you'll see some spotlights. These things were in the absolute worst possible spots.

From each location I tried to shoot the boat, there was usually one spot shining directly at me. In this particular picture, I seemed to miss the spots, but just to the right of the paddle...a big lit sign from a bar accross the river.

My only other option - get wet and jump in the Mississippi River.
I just went through the history of this blog and realized that I have never posted when of my all-time favorite pictures.

It's a picture of the paddlewheel on the Delta Queen. A much small and older riverboat that was anchor in Red Wing a few years ago.

These next to pictures are new attempts at capturing something I find really fascinating.

This first one will look familiar to the first paddlewheel I just mentioned. One big difference this time is the fact I'm shooting at night. That posses some real challenges.

This next picture I found I really liked when I was going through all my pictures.

The lighting is a bit harsh at the bottom, but the contrast really makes me look deep into this frame.

I found it really hard to shoot for another reason, my family was exhausted in the car. We've had a long couple of days and now Dad is off taking pictures of a boat.

It was still fun and I think the results were worth the effort.

There are some days I definitely miss living on the river. Rochester doesn't really have any rivers. Guys...the Zumbro is much closer to a creek than the Mississippi River. Now that's a river!