646 - Mallows Bay
Today I explored an abandoned ship yard.
What’s even crazier is that I started posting vlogs again. And yes, I’m aware that you clicked on that link to see photos of abandoned ships. I’ll get to that.
First I need to talk about the state of the union. As many of you may have known, for the past year or so I’ve been posting on a second YouTube channel called Explorer University, which basically breaks down my entire photography and editing process from scratch.
It did decently, but I decided to switch it up and start posting travel content again on my main channels.
And the first vlog, which was about this adventure, absolutely destroyed on Instagram. Three weeks after posting it, it’s sitting at 60k+ views. That’s fucking insane. Most views I’ve gotten in years.
All I did was snag some drone shots and do a voice over talking about the place for 30 seconds. A format that’s highly doable on these adventures. So I took it and ran with it.
The second vlog I made, which was a vlog about the Inn at Afton adventure, is sitting at 77k views in two weeks. Clearly there’s something to this.
The only catch is that both of these adventures have been about abandoned stuff, so I’m not sure if it’s the urban exploration niche or the actual format that is pulling views.
But there’s only one way to find out. It feels like a little rumble of life for the career side of this whole thing, which is refreshing.
Anyway, let’s switch back to the adventure. My meat and potatoes.
I found out about Mallows Bay years ago when I first moved out to DC. It’s one of those things that’s right up my alley (an abandoned shipyard, are you kidding me??,) but it took me forever to finally make it down here.
I was waiting to experience it in a kayak, but renting one for golden hour was bringing too many complications, so I just sent it down here without one.
I got a drone, mind as well use it. In fact, it’s been years since I’ve used it.
Right out of the gate, I snagged this photo of the ships from above:
“Graveyard”
Taken with DJI Mavic Mini Pro 3
[ISO 100 ~ 6.72mm ~ f/1.7 ~ 1/25s]
There were only a few ships completely above the water, which is crazy because the bay is home to over 200 shipswrecks. Most are completely sunk- which makes them useless for photography except for shots like this.
The second ship that’s partially showing was this guy:
It’s a strange shot because if you don’t know it’s a ship, it could be anything and it’s significantly less cool. But once you see the ship, you’re like ohhhhhh.
The third ship above the water is the most famous one, and I managed to snag it in these two images at sunset:
Oh, and while I’m in that color palette, I mind as well share this guy:
That’s my favorite shot of the sesh which is ironic because this adventure had some monster set pieces.
Let’s keep this train (or should I say boat) chuggin’. I’m ridiculously excited for the future.
