Last May, my son and I traveled to Portsmouth New Hampshire to photograph the USS Manchester (LCS-14) which was being commissioned.

It was tied up at the New Hampshire State Port Authority on the Piscataqua River. Since it was a weekend, we were able to setup across the river on Badger Island.

Later we moved to Kittery and found an open site off of Rice Ave. that allowed me to change perspective.

Also got a few close ups:

Afterwards, we visited the USS Albacore (AGSS-569), but I’ll post those pictures another day.

The USS Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, was in Boston for its commissioning ceremony.  My son and I saw this ship in August when we travelled to Bath, Maine to photograph the Zumwalt destroyer, USS Monsoor.  However, many of the photographs of the Hudner came out poorly due to distance or an error on my part.

While it was in Boston, I was able to go on a public tour of the Hudner. Most of the photographs are from that outing.

The following Saturday, I planned to take pictures when the sun came up. I woke up early, but decided I wanted to sleep more and tried to get back to sleep. After 30 minutes of failing to get back to sleep, I got up, threw the previous day’s clothes on, gathered my camera equipment (except for my remote trigger) and drove to a spot across the Reserve channel, which I probably should not have.

I drove to the lobster boat pier, found a sign that said not to enter, and doubled back to another spot. I parked, gathered my equipment, walked near the waters edge and found a large barge in the way. I decided to try the lobster pier again and found that the do not enter sign applied to a different fenced area, so I drove in. After asking if it was ok to photograph in the area and getting an ok, I grabbed my gear, setup my tripod and took a bunch of photos.

I watched as a Massachusetts Environmental Police boat appeared, came to the waters edge and dropped a Massachusetts Environmental Police officer off. We talked courteously and he went on his way.

Just then the light peaked through the clouds and lit up the Hudner.

I got a few more shots of the ship and the surrounding seagulls and decided to drive home. I saw another spot outside the port on the drive home, but ignored it. Since this was likely the last time I would get a chance to photograph any Burke-class destroyer, I turned around and got a few more photos of the ship and a number of birds from a little park.

However, the light was higher and much more harsh, so the pictures aren’t nearly as good, unfortunately. You can find all of the pictures I posted at my Flickr album: