Five Minutes: Queen Mary 2 docks in Sydney

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

My cruise on QM2 began on Saturday 25 February, but I kicked off the holiday early and spent the night of the 24th in the Sir Stamford Hotel at Circular Quay. I knew from experience that rooms on the west side offered a view of the Overseas Passenger Terminal. I liked the idea of waking up and, voila!, the ship would be there. However, I woke up at 5:30am (an ungodly hour), and peeked out the balcony door: nothing. Of course, I couldn’t go back to sleep, so every 15 minutes I peeked out again, until at about 6:15am I saw it turning past the opera house to come in stern first. So I put on my white Sir Stamford robe and my shoes, and stood on my Juliet balcony in the grey pre-dawn drizzle to capture the arrival. The feature image is the OPT before QM2 eased into view.

The Five Minute challenge suggests: “Choose a scene or an object and keep fixed on that object, and shoot for just five minutes. You can move around the object or scene but try not to interfere with it. See what happens in that five minutes, what changes, how the light changes, what comes into the frame or leaves the frame, or what other parts of the object you can focus on or use to your advantage.”

In this five-minute sequence (6:36am to 6:41am), the focus is on “what comes into the frame”. In addition to the rear end of the largest ocean liner in the world, you’ll also see a tug boat and various vehicles whizzing past in streaks of light.

---