Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/4 ISO 200 4s tripod mounted with cable releaseAs a child I had huge Tonka trucks made of metal that I played with in a large sandbox. As I looked at the photo above, it reminded me that the first time I ever thought about having a job, I thought I wanted to operate a steam shovel. It seemed like a really cool job, and still does! During a recent DSLR photography lesson on what should have been a dead peaceful Sunset Beach, there was instead an incredible noise coming from the steam shovel and dump truck working into the early night repairing the erosion damage caused by a large storm a few days earlier.
At first I thought what rotten luck to have that racket going on during a lesson. However, it did give us a chance for a pretty unique photo opportunity. Photographing the twilight sky from a beach in Florida is nothing rare, but having an active construction site in the foreground of that twilight sky is.
Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/4 ISO 200 2s tripod mounted with cable releaseI wonder if the steam shovel operator felt uneasy having so much of the Gulf of Mexico to his/her back? Did they have any irrational fear that they would slip back and sink into deep water? Into the brine? I did. I guess I prefer to be a daylight, solid ground steam shovel operator.