Sailabration

Aerial view of tall ships arriving in Baltimore

Aerial view of tall ships arriving in Baltimore

14 Photos

Tall ships arrive in Baltimore as part of the Star-Spangled bicentennial. The ships’ arrival kick off events celebrating the bicentennial of the Battle of Baltimore — and of Francis Scott Key’s writing of the “Star-Spangled Banner” as he watched the British fail in their attack on Fort McHenry this week in 1814. Officials are expecting at least a million people to attend the events.

RELATED: Baltimore’s 1814 Star-Spangled 200 Celebration [Pictures] | Frequently asked questions about the Star-Spangled Spectacular | Tall ships arrive in Baltimore as excitement for Star-Spangled bicentennial grows | Sun coverage: Star-Spangled Spectacular 2014

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2012: Baltimore Sun’s Year in Pictures

2012: Baltimore Sun’s Year in Pictures

75 photos

Wilson Hicks, former Executive Editor for Life Magazine, once wrote, “The most graphic reporting is eyewitness reporting. ‘I was there, I saw it happen, it was like this.’ In journalistic print, the firsthand account which comes closest to reproducing the actuality of an event is the picture…”

Baltimore Sun photographers were on hand to witness and photograph the highs and lows of 2012, from the resurgent Orioles making the playoffs for the first time in 15 years to the devastation of Superstorm Sandy.

The images in this gallery are a sampling of these pictures as selected by Sun Director of Photography Robert Hamilton. Some of these photographs are from significant events that shaped the lives of people; others are small moments of universal truths.

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Les Tonnerres de Brest sailing festival

Les Tonnerres de Brest sailing festival

15 photos

The seaport of Brest in western France transforms every four years into a mecca for boating fanatics with “Les Tonnerres de Brest,” or the Brest Maritime Festival. This year’s celebration was another first for the new French president Francois Hollande after the Bastille Day celebrations came to a close. Along with close to a million spectators, President Hollande witnessed vessels from all over the world last week demonstrating centuries of their sailing prowess before setting out for a spectacular parade finale.

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Baltimore 365: The spring of 2012

Baltimore 365: The spring of 2012

15 photos

The brainchild of The Sun’s Entertainment Content Editor Amanda Krotki, Baltimore 365* sprang forth in 2012 as a visual chronicle of a year in the life of our city. With our keen collective eye on local news, we began posting visually stimulating photos that best exemplified that day in Baltimore.

Here are 15 photos selected to represent Baltimore 365 during the months of April, May and June. Topics include Kegasus and UniCarl at Preakness Infieldfest, playful dolphins at the National Aquarium, the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels and a fire eater with 5,000 tattoos at Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

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Sailabration ships sail the internet through smart phone cameras

Sailabration ships sail the internet through smart phone cameras

26 photos

The days of art school assignments fulfilled by lugging bulky, metal-bodies cameras with manual focus and no optical zoom are behind us. Even though many of us loved every minute of it, and secretly, the smell of Kodak developer, the convenience of having an iPhone 4 in your pocket is invaluable. Better still is the gratification of sharing those photos immediately around the web.

Last year on MSNBC’s Rock Center, Annie Leibovitz said that the iPhone 4s was the “snapshot camera of today.” And while not every smartphone has an 8 megapixel resolution like the iPhone 4S, most provide an instant, and very accessible, camera for when the moment strikes. Using basic composition skills and remembering the tips from Robert Hamilton, the Sun’s director of photography, the following Sailabration photos were shot on an iPhone 4 with the Camera+ app and clarity filter between 5:30 and 10:00 p.m. on June 14, 2012.
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