Light at the End of the Ship
Shipyard photographer Jeremy Starn writes about his experience taking and sharing pictures at the shipyard. He talks about what it’s like to photograph in the tropics and at a jungle shipyard. Using a few photos as examples, he recalls stories of different images and how they came about.
Light at the End of the Ship
I am the photographer here at the AstilleroVerde/SAILCARGO INC. shipyard. Among other tasks my primary job is to document and share our story. Everyday I walk around the yard and I ask people what they are doing (I’m not a woodworker or a boat builder). I watch people work, I think about the light, and I try to record our progress. I try to make pictures that tell a story that is both engaging and which accurately reflects life here at the yard. To give a sense of my experience here I’ve written about how the yard looks to me and how I make my photographs. Hopefully this gives a glimpse of my job documenting a truly novel construction company in a most unusual setting.
Location
The shipyard is located at the end of a small peninsula; on several acres sloping into water. Two sides of the property are surrounded by mangrove with trees beyond that and sharp hills rising from across the water. Shadowing the hills are layers of mountains.
The shipyard property runs roughly north-south with the centerline of the ship running northeast by southwest almost inline with the sun's path.
All buildings on site are open by design, with only 2 storage rooms with closed walls. Thus all photos are naturally lit. Everything relies on the sun for sole illumination.
Darks and Lights
There are three things that produce shade in the shipyard. Corrugated sheet metal, tarps made of canvas or plastic, and trees. The sun creates harsh lines from the sheet metal. There are strange aquamarine tints from the plastic tarps above the ship and of course beautiful trees that can create a mesmeric moire of shadows. With the sun so strong all year round the most difficult challenge is working with dramatic contrast. Sometimes this is fantastic. Sometimes this radical contrast is not very helpful at all.
Hue and Saturation
The main colors in the yard are shades of orange and brown, with the reds and yellows of the wood dominating everything. The smell of the Spanish Cedar is bitter and the sawdust cloaks everything. Colors come from the cut wood, the green of the encompassing mangrove, the large trees on site and in the rainy season the grass, fields and plantings. To say that everything is red, green and blue here is not being cute. We are surrounded by dark orange and red wood, lush green tropical trees and the blue sky and Pacific Ocean.
Weather
When all the buildings are open and there is only natural light, the weather is a large part of the equation. This can go without saying anywhere but it is especially true here and really makes a large difference. It’s the wet season now. The humidity makes everything damp and camera lenses tend to fog when they’re kept in a bag overnight and brought out to work in the morning. There’s always a heavy contrast between light, temperature, humidity and everything else in life here.
Everyday rain produces lush greens that mix with wet black clay. The dark mountains, clouds like towers and a moist feeling in everything. The water just seeps through the wood, dark and mysterious. For half a year it can feel like this before the shipyard is transformed into a desert without rain for months, wind that whips and dust that dries your eyes and throat. With few clouds, the dry season desaturates everything in a wash of unfiltered light. Pale oranges, flat browns, the heat can seem to make things one dimensional. With less color in everything there is also less contrast. The yard seems flatter, duller and of course hotter. When there are fewer clouds it means there is less variety of light. It’s just the bare sun
During the dry season, weeks can go by without a significant cloud. During the rainy months, sometimes the sun is a temporary character, unsure when it may make an appearance again.
Nothing is easy, everything is tranquilo.
However, time is what most determines the quality of color. Both time of day and time of year.
Morning
The work day begins at 6:30am when the neighboring teak plantation trees still eclipse the sun. By 7:30 the yard is widely lit at a steep angle, the sheet metal roofs not yet fulfilling their function. The surfacing station with it’s roof raised high is in full spotlight until long after breakfast. Some of the darkest blacks and brightest whites are seen here.
The ship is illuminated around the stern starboard side, while the port is still in deep shadow and the lofting floor all but unseen by the camera. Rays pierce the wood stove smoke and the banana trees are still a dark green, waiting to become luminescent when the sun soaks their paper thin leaves.
Walking through the yard at this time of day the sun is at such a low angle you can’t look towards the eastern half of the yard without it blinding you. It’s already hot but the shade is cool and dark for another hour before everything heats up and the shadows are eased.
I’m guessing this photo was taken around 8:30 am by the angle of the sun. Lynx is looking almost due east here.
Afternoon
Inside the ship the light is different from anywhere else on the yard. Now that most of the frames are raised the sunlight is mostly diffused. Between the canvas overhangings long thin beams strike through. Wait a few minutes and the beam will slowly move over to the next frame. It can be quite dark, or blindingly bright. It can have incredible contrast or the most even light.
Essentially the Earth’s position relative to the Sun is what dictates how photos will look here.
October at 3pm it’s mostly likely raining with the sun over the bow. April at 11 am and the shadows underneath the central tree in the yard are perfect for chiaroscuro portraits.
Evening
The great yellow ball in the sky finally falls past the forward frames of Ceiba. After 4:30 the light is at a low angle striking through the distant mountains, the gulf of Nicoya, the low lying mangroves and finally says goodnight to the bow of our ship at 6:30.
Photo Stories
This was taken while I was walking past Pablo and forgot that I had it until a few days later. It didn’t look like much at first, but I needed it for a series on fairing and with some severe cropping and editing it actually turned into one of my favorite images. This just happened spontaneously and only happened because of my morning walks around the yard, taking pictures not always with an explicit purpose.
For weeks on end people have been fairing the inside of the forward frames and I have many, many pictures of this process. The light at the bow of the ship is different. The half frames are taller and the canvas tarps above them are both of a lighter color and hang a few meters higher than the rest, letting more light in. With the symmetrical lines and increased light of a different color, it’s simply a spot made for beautiful photos. For days I’d been visiting the inside bow waiting for the perfect picture. There are few other good ones from this spot but this is my favorite, and I’m starting to like it in square format.
This was a whole day of just ‘hurry up and wait’. It was a double frame raising, I believe the only day where we actually lifted two full mid-ship frames in one day. It took most of the day and had been heavily anticipated. Over 40 people participated in one way or another with many different teams of people working independently off and on and then all together. This image was taken after the first and in preparation for the second. Images like this where there are many actions spanning the image remind me of neoclassical paintings like “Oath of Horatii” by Jacques-Louis David. It doesn’t happen often when there is a group of people working in line like this but when it does I really enjoy the scene it creates. The light that day was also perfect. It was an afternoon hoist, on the cusp of the rainy season when it’s expected to start raining around 3 or 4pm just about everyday. There were dark clouds swirling in the hills around us, but still with bright sun coming at a 45 angle from us.
There is just so much going on at the yard at any given time. Sometimes when you walk through it’ll seem quiet with little activity and then five chainsaws will start, and then a couple weed wackers and some planers, and then it’ll be quiet with only a distance handsaw and some hammering. You’ll only see a few people but then the tractor will go by with two people in the driver's seat and someone guiding the giant timbers it’s moving with its fork.
Sometimes the light can be quite soft in the right places, without looking too far. Between the ship and the lofting floor you can find sufficient, diffuse light, with a few streaks that can act as spots. However a few meters and you’re underneath the ship where it’s immediately dark with the bright yard just beyond. This image is in between the lofting floor and the ship, just outside the tarps under the metal roof of the lofting floor. It’s probably the most consistently even, albeit dark, light there is in the yard.
I believe that a part of my job is simply to be present, and watchful. This can seem difficult at times because it’s not possible to be omnipresent, wanting to capture every moment. Likewise it can feel odd to be idle, waiting for something to happen. But when standing around pays off, it’s worth it. I take my job as photographer for SAILCARGO INC. as being a documentarian for the build of the ship for current and future investors, but it’s also just to document our life here, in such a unique place. This is one of the largest wooden cargo vessels in the world, perhaps the only one being built right now for this purpose and the only one to my knowledge in Central America. Possibly ever in Costa Rica. On top of all that the people here are fun to be around. A great combination.
Other common elements are the architectural lines which are almost never straight, because of two reasons. One, the ship is made of curved lines, but two, and this is something that makes the shipyard unique, is that all of the buildings are constructed from round unmilled logs. This adds an organic feeling as if the shipyard has simply grown out of the mangrove.
Editing and Style
Stylistically I like to emphasize the grainy-ness of the yard, everything is covered in dust and sweat. Life can seem exaggerated here with lots of contrast and grain. In editing I add contrast, I burn and dodge and I do some basic color correction. I try to make engaging photos without exaggerating. It often doesn’t need much.
Goals
A large goal is to make a comprehensive photo book of this whole project. This is always in the back of my head when I’m making images. Every image is a small piece of the larger story that will be told in a singular printed work.
I’m lucky as a photographer that my subject doesn’t really change very much. The boat gets bigger, people change but only over many months. I’m lucky that everyone here is so comfortable with me getting in their face with a camera while they are working. I’m grateful for the people, the project and for the opportunity to do what I love in such an amazing place.
All photographs are shot with a Canon 6D and a 24-105mm F/4L and Meinke 85mm F/1.4
