Baltimore and meetings out of the Blue (Angels)

I've taken a lot of pictures over the last few months, but I just haven't had the time to review, process or upload them. Between our family vacation and additional recent travel, there are a lot of shots in the queue!

I happened to be in Baltimore on business while the city was celebrating the bicentennial of Francis Scott Key writing "The Star Spangled Banner." It was an open-air party, so the Inner Harbor was full of tall ships, dignitaries and sailors in their dress whites. Having a couple of hours to kill before my train left for Washington, I headed down to the harbor and found that the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels had decided to put on a show just for me (several thousand other people watched, too).

I'm posting these few shots ahead of the others in my lengthy queue because I learned two lessons while taking them:

  1. The Fujifilm X-E1 and the Fujinon 55-200mm zoom are capable of creating high-quality images, but they are NOT designed for following fast action. I know a lot of people have written on this topic, but it's not until you try following and focusing on jet fighters performing aerobatic moves that you realize just how ill-suited this equipment is for that particular task. It was a frustrating exercise but, fortunately, most of my favourite subjects don't move quite so fast.
  2. More importantly, I probably need to be more open to meeting new people. A family beside me -- grandfather, father and two young boys -- was also watching the Blue Angels and we got to talking. Far from distracting me, they added to my enjoyment of the afternoon as we tried to track the planes, joked about how tricky it was, and chatted back and forth about Canada and the U.S.

I'm making no claims that these are great images. But I'm posting them here as a souvenir of an enjoyable afternoon in good company.