Here’s an oldie but a goodie, dug up from one of my past escapades. I had taken a day trip down to Battleship Cove in Fall River, figuring there had to be something cool to photograph. I was not wrong.
The torpedo room aboard the USS Lionfish — a World War II-era submarine — was not exactly what you’d call spacious. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone spent more than a few hours in that tight, claustrophobic tin can without losing their mind. I’m pretty sure I would’ve been court-martialed before we even left the dock.
But the moment I stepped into that torpedo room, I stopped in my tracks. It was a glorious mess of knobs, buttons, dials, gauges, and blinking lights — like someone gave a six-year-old a Navy budget and said, “Have at it.”
There was just one problem: the lighting. Or rather, the complete and utter lack of it. A few sad little bulbs struggled to illuminate the space, and the contrast between light and shadow was brutal. My camera’s histogram basically just shrugged and said, “Good luck with that.”
Still, I got to work. I ended up taking ten exposures at different brightness levels, knowing full well that I’d have to blend them later using HDR software if I had any shot of saving the detail.
At the time? I wasn’t feeling it. I glanced at the LCD and thought, Meh. It didn’t have that “nailed it” moment. But I chalked it up to practice, packed up, and moved on to other things — crazy scenes inside the massive guns of the U.S.S. Massachusetts, sweeping views of the Braga Bridge from the deck. It turned into a full-blown photography buffet.
Weeks later, back at home, I circled back to those submarine shots. I loaded up the HDR software, told it to work its magic, and sat back.
Boom.
Suddenly, all the things I didn’t see on that tiny LCD screen leapt to life: detail in the shadows, glowing lights that didn’t blow out, and a sense of drama that just oozed from the metal walls.
I ended up printing it using a sublimation process onto a piece of aluminum. That torpedo room photo — the one I almost wrote off entirely — became the centerpiece of my very first gallery exhibit.
Moral of the story? Never underestimate the photo that doesn’t look like much. Sometimes, your best shots are just waiting to be rescued from the shadows.
Not every photo reveals itself on the back of your camera. Some only show their worth once you’ve had the patience to rescue them in post.
This dramatic, moody submarine interior is proof that even the harshest lighting conditions can be shaped into something worth hanging. A bold, industrial piece for anyone drawn to history and drama.