Boatnerd Discussion Forum

When I saw this thread it brought back a lot of memories. My first picture was pure accident, My brother and I did what a lot of kids that owned a Muscle Car during the first heavy snow of November it was time to "spin doughnuts" in local parking lots. While taking a break from that we stopped under the Bluewater Bridge and had lunch. We found a cheepo disposable camera in the glove box and took a few shots of waves crashing on the shoreline when out of the heavy snow came a downbound Herbert C. Jackson. I took only one picture of her but it was very good for the camera and the photographers short comings. Sadly I do not still have the photo. Very good times....

Guest wrote:Here is a scan of this very poor quality photo. If only we had affordable digital cameras back then! But any quality camera for a kid of 11 years was far out of reach of most working class families of the era. Although the Ashland can be barely made out (if I did not know which ship it was I could not tell you if it was the Ashland or Thomas Wilson), I can vividly remember being blown about by high winds as I took this photograph. Does anyone else have any memories of their first ship pictures?

The time I was in the back of a family van, crossing over the Seaway just outside Montreal, I took a picture of the view, but failed to notice the ship off to the side. On later review of the photo I noticed the ship and identified her as Algosoo.

Here is a scan of this very poor quality photo. If only we had affordable digital cameras back then! But any quality camera for a kid of 11 years was far out of reach of most working class families of the era. Although the Ashland can be barely made out (if I did not know which ship it was I could not tell you if it was the Ashland or Thomas Wilson), I can vividly remember being blown about by high winds as I took this photograph. Does anyone else have any memories of their first ship pictures?

After all that build-up, you have got to post the pic.

It should be noted that the power failure suffered by Oglebay Norton's Ashland in Lake Superior 35 years today occurred on what was to become the last trip or her career as she laid up at Toledo on December 19th of that year following repairs at Thunder Bay and unloading her ore cargo at Ashtabula. It remained idle at Toledo until being sold for scrapping in 1987. Although I only seen this ship one time in my life, it has always been special to me as it was the subject of the very picture I ever took of a ship. This took place within a month of its final trip as I was able to snap a picture of her passing upbound at the Algonac State Park under windy conditions in November of 1979. Unfortunately, at only 11 years old, all I had at the time was an old 126 Instamatic camera I bought at a yard sale for $1. As anyone that used these type of cameras back then can attest, they were not the best for landscape photographs. Nonetheless, this very poor quality photograph occupies a special place in my photo collection.