Nippon Highway en route to the sea

The Nippon Highway, an automobile carrier, makes its way past Astoria headed for the mouth of the Columbia River and the open sea on July 17, 2009. I at first hoped to capture the size and bulk of this ship by showing the full, grey body, but it quickly became a silhouette to my camera as it eased past my location. Instead, I got something I hadn't even looked for - the reflection of the light off the water on the slanted plane of the hull and the gray-on gray cloud bank, so typical of the weather on the river. The sky was gray even clouds in that direction at the end of the day, but you can clearly see the fog bank rolling in with its shaded patterns over Cape Disappointment in Washington.

If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see the railing in the open space at the bow of the ship, which will give some idea of scale. I'm using this photo as my submission for the "Weather" theme on ShutterDay. Link on over and see more photos of weather.