It has been a while since I have had an entry here. Life has been composed of one crazy day after another. On that token, I decided to go back a bit in time a post a picture that I shot quite a while ago.

I had to go down to the TTI terminal one night to take some pictures of a container for one of China Shipping’s customers. I took this opportunity to snap a few shots of the cranes and staging area. This is the area where trucks line up to either pick up import loads or drop off export loads. The sun had just barely set, and there was still that twilight glow in the sky. With the crane and terminal lights, it looked pretty cool.

Now this was back before I had a digital camera, so I didn’t even really know how the shots were going to turn out. It is really weird to think back when I first started out in photography. There was a refreshing quality to not know how a shot was going to turn out, forgetting about it, and then when you got the prints back, being pleasantly surprised.

Now you can, shoot, review, shoot some more, and even do basic corrections without having to even think about basic photographic principles. I like to think that my photos were somewhat better back in those days, mainly because there was a cost associated with every frame. You had a vested interest to make sure the shot was composed properly because it was costing you money every time your finger hit that shutter release. It made you think before you took the picture, instead of after the fact.

I wonder if Costco even processes film anymore…

TTI Staging Area on Film, originally uploaded by jasolutions.

This is the CSCL Asia docked at the TTI Terminal in Long Beach, California. This was on its maiden voyage in July of 2004, and at the time was the largest container vessel in the world. It is capable of carrying over 8500 containers.

The picture itself is a stitch of 7 individual pictures. I was called down to the vessel to take a look at one of their computers and the longshoremen were just about to start unloading, so I hurried over to the stern to snap a few shots.

The ship’s crew was awesome as well. On another occasion, I had to come out to take some pictures of a container that was being unloaded. While I was waiting for that container to come up in the queue, the Chief Mate invited me up for dinner with the officers. The food was ok. It was very authentic Chinese, not like the American-Chinese food we are used to. I was however, very surprised to have been served a whole crab.

Overall, it was a really cool experience and I try to get out to the terminals every chance I can to get unique shots of these monstrous vessels.

CSCL Asia at the TTI Terminal, originally uploaded by jasolutions.