Semester At Sea - David Mathre Photography

Two-Years Ago (21-January-2016) — Pacific Ocean

Gone to See the World. Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage on the MV World Odyssey. Day 16: Crossing the Pacific Ocean.

“Charlie’s Angels” or “The Sunrise and Breakfast Club Photography Group” portrait taken while waiting for the sun to rise. The dawn colors are gone, and it is still 27 minutes until the sun is up. I normally don’t do people pictures, so they took me out of my comfort zone during the voyage to include people in my images. Composite of two images taken with a Leica T camera and 55-135 mm lens (ISO 500, 90 mm, f/4.4, 1/200 sec). You might ask, why is it a composite image? Rookie mistake doing people pictures. One image they all have their eyes open, but I cut off the feet. The other image they don’t all have their eyes open, but I did have the feet. There still are some artifacts from merging the images that need to be fixed.

Sunrise and Breakfast Club. Composite of 2 images taken with a Leica T camera and 55-135 mm lens (ISO 500, 90 mm, f/4.4, 1/200 sec). (David J Mathre)

Individual Images from the slide show can be viewed here.

Two-Years Ago (20-January-2016) — Pacific Ocean

Gone to See the World. Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage on the MV World Odyssey. Day 15: Crossing the Pacific Ocean From Hawaii to Japan.

Every day the sunrise at sea is different. It was a windy day, and we were traveling into the wind so the aft decks were safe. At the end of the day, after the sun set there were unique blue colors near the horizon caused by the earth’s shadow with pastel pinks above that are called the “Belt of Venus”. I have seen this before while camping in the mountains, but didn’t know the cause. I really wanted to see if I could capture the colors in an image since they are so subtle.

Individual images in the slide show are available here.

Two-Years Ago (18-January-2016) — Pacific Ocean

Gone to See the World. Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage on the MV World Odyssey. Day 13: Crossing the Pacific Ocean From Hawaii to Japan.

It was a long day. I got up well before dawn, and got a silhouette image of the forward deck statue. Then a so, so sunrise image. In my cabin on the 8th deck was an oil painting, with a brass label and signature on the painting of Claude Monet. I asked one of the art history students if she could identify the painting and if it was the original or a copy? I didn’t really believe that it was the original, but the ship (MV Deutschland) when Semester at Sea wasn’t leasing it as the MV World Odyssey did have a lot of art work (paintings, statues, gold chandeliers, exotic woods, brass fittings, china dining ware, etc). When I got back home, I was able to do a Google image search, and found that it was indeed a painting by Claude Monet “Path Through the Corn at Pourville“. The original is listed as being in a private collection. For sunset, I set up a camera to do a time-lapse sequence on the forward upper deck, which I made into a video. There was a 1980’s disco for the faculty, staff, and life-long-learners (students not invited) in the faculty lounge/bar. To end the day I got an image of the constellation Orion while standing on a moving ship. The sensors on the new cameras are amazing, and can capture images in very low light situations. In the past, I would have had to use a much longer exposure where you would see the stars as jagged lines.

Individual images in the slide show can be viewed here.

The constellation Orion in the night sky from the aft deck of the MV World Odyssey. Image taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and 35 mm f/1.4 lens (ISO 6400, 35 mm, f/16, 1/60 sec). (David J Mathre)

Two-Years Ago (17-January-2016) — Pacific Ocean

Gone to See the World. Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage on the MV World Odyssey. Day 12: Crossing the Pacific Ocean From Hawaii to Japan.

This was the day that magic happened. We lost a day, 16-Jan-16 never happened. Look at the images carefully to find the alien pretending to be a student on the voyage, and when gravity was suspended. Too bad if anyone on the ship had their birthday on the missing day.

Individual images in this slide show can be viewed here.

Individual images in the slide show can be viewed here.

Outdoor breakfast after shooting dawn and sunrise on the deck of the MV World Odyssey. Image taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and 35 mm f/1.4 lens (ISO 200, 35 mm, f/7, 1/125 sec). (David J Mathre)

Individual images in the slide show can be viewed here.

First Quarter Moon from the deck of the MV World Odyssey. Image taken with a Nikon One V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (ISO 200, 300 mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec). Field of View equivalent to an 810 mm lens on a 35 mm sensor camera. (David J Mathre)

We crossed the International Date Line (180 degrees) east or west (or half way around the planet) from the zero degree line going through Greenwich, England. We actually, didn’t cross the line until 13:19 but the Captain of the ship gets to select which day we cross datelines so as not to confuse things in the middle of the day.

Two-Years Ago (15-January-2016) — Pacific Ocean

Gone to See the World. Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage on the MV World Odyssey. Day 11: Crossing the Pacific Ocean From Hawaii to Japan.

There were lots of storm clouds in the morning. The sun rose under the clouds producing some interesting electric orange colors. Later in the morning we had some rain squalls, but when the sun reappeared the conditions were right for some rainbows. Later that evening a Masked Booby decided to spend the night on the forward deck. Actually, I think after the bird landed, it found out that there was not enough room to take-off again. It is actually a pretty big bird. Before the students could harass it, or try to feed it bread some members of the crew came out with a blanket to cover the bird. They then took it to an aft deck where there was room for it take-off and fly away.

Individual images in the slide-show can be viewed here.