Striking storm photos displayed at Mukilteo restaurant

Published 6:03 pm Thursday, May 15, 2008

Photographer Ross Fotheringham remembered the day last fall when he held his finger down on the shutter, machine-gun mode, and prayed to the camera gods, “Please, please, I’ll never get a picture like this again.”

The gods smiled on him that day.

Fotheringham shot the second giant wave that crashed against the ferry Cathlamet in a dramatic set of photos that gave the hobby photographer a brief moment of national recognition as magazines from as far away as Washington, D.C. sought his images.

“I got very lucky that day,” Fotheringham said. “I’m always hoping to top the last splash.”

On Tuesday, one of the most dramatic in Fotheringham’s series, depicting a rolling Cathlamet on the Mukilteo-to-Clinton passage, was unveiled at Ivar’s Mukilteo Landing restaurant. Ivar’s bought and enlarged four of Fotheringham’s storm images to hang in the restaurant.

Fotheringham and Capt. Torger Skolmen, who was at the helm of the Cathlamet during the storm, spoke at the unveiling about that day last October.

It was Oct. 18 when the wind hit with gusts of more than 50 miles per hour. Fotheringham, 33, of Mill Creek, had headed from his job to the Mukilteo Lighthouse Park where he planned to take storm pictures.

“It was a great show,” Fotheringham said. “I could see people on the boat … it was like a roller coaster ride.”

Skolmen remembered the 7- to 8-foot waves knocking the boat around like it was a cork. After 30 years on the ferry system, the captain said that though he was used to bad weather, the storm really tested his skills. There were no injuries.

Fotheringham said he takes pictures of what he loves: landscapes, railroads, weather and ferries.

“How great they are to do what it takes to get you home during a storm,” Fotheringham said. “So you can sleep in your own bed at night and see your families.”