Archive for October, 2005

Robert’s slideshow this weekend went well, with several excellent presentations (and a few that were a bit lacking, but such is life). Attendance was good and I got to chat with and catch up with several friends who I only get to see a few times each year at similar events. We had a decent couple days of railfanning, with mostly gray and cloudy weather so probably not many calendar shots.

Eventually I’ll get around to looking at my photos and perhaps post a few.

Shot today… M.o.W. equipment parked at Vancouver.

I stopped trackside for a few minutes today at lunch and found a new photo angle down at the depot. I screwed up the shot by not using my monopod, mistakenly thinking I could handhold my 300m F4L with the 1.4x teleconverter on it. It’s a textbook lesson why a photographer should have a monopod or tripod, and use it anytime they can. Why didn’t I use it today? Laziness. I figured ah, why bother getting it out for one shot. Anyway, the vertical alignment was botched so I’ll have to shoot it again another day.

This weekend is Robert’s big annual slideshow and foaming shindig up in Centralia. Steve and I are set for an 0700 departure, railfanning our way north and hopefully getting a few decent shots throughout the day before the show. We’re spending the night up there and railfanning our way back home on Sunday. Right now the weather forecast is for crappy with intermittant shitty. Oh well.

No pictures today, but I did see a few trains. I started out down at 8th street where a grain train was being recrewed. Power was three H2 Dash 9 units (BNSF 5470, 4827, 5372).

As I drove up to the center, one of the yard jobs was shoving a sizable cut of cars (30-ish) down over the hill around 5mph and consequently tying up everything. The dispatcher did a good job of poising things to get moving once he cleared, and once he was off the diamonds the next two movements started coming through: a northbound UP stack train (UP 3822, 4018, 4371) and a short cut of cars that needed to pull out from the middle lead and to the back track. After a few minutes the Camas turn returned and got held up at 8th street.

I drove up to the shops and found some variety… BNSF 877, 5175, 345, and RLMX 8595. Sitting at 39th street was the H-EVEBAR9 with BNSF 4742, 4664, and 795. And back to work I went.

A new type of active warning system?

Shot October 15, 2005 at Ridgefield South, BNSF Seattle Sub.

Today’s lunch was not much movin’ and a little bit of shootin’

I started out eating my lunch at the depot, with nothing really moving. I put the 300mm F4L on the camera and attacked a geep that was left unattended:

Okay, okay… so I did shoot one train… well, not really a train… it was a light power set with quite the assortment and not a single Dash 9 in sight: BNSF 573 (B40-8W), BNSF 116 (GP60M), BNSF 7043 (SD40-2), and BNSF 8716 (GP60):

My main internet stomping grounds for railroad discussion for the past couple years has been RailroadForums.com. In April of this year, the guy who runs the site brought me on board as a staff member to help out with some specific things and help keep things flowing in general. He has an all-volunteer staff of several individuals, each who participate in varying levels.

The past couple weeks have been taxing on me as a moderator there… for whatever reason, some members apparently have nothing better to do than come online and stir up shit. And unfortunately there’s usually some other dork who will respond and start the war. Last week, folks got into heated arguments about photo technique, egos, and the forming of a new site where all photos posted will be open for critique. One member routinely posts poor quality work, asks for feedback, then throws a tantrum when folks tell him it’s crud. Last night I logged on to find that someone took a thread about Amtrak hitting a deer and managed to turn it into a personal attack against anyone who’d ever joined the military, because “obviously they don’t want to live”. Tonight folks are back to snippy name-calling and obscenties over a poor quality photo.

Screw it. Time for a break. Someone else can go referee these babies for a while. When I’m at the point where logging onto my favorite railroad website leads to frustration every time because I have to go warn some jackass to stop being a bully, it’s time to take some time off. I’m not sure why it is that folks are looking to pick a fight or say things online that they would never say in person, but lately my patience is wearing thing to deal with threads titled like “What is your favorite condiment”…

Oh, and I promise my next post won’t just be me bitching. Maybe even a photo if you wait patiently

Or at least that’s what it could have been called for folks in my neck of the woods. This past weekend was RailroadForums.com’s second “Rails Around the World” event, where they invite photographers to take an image on a particular date and submit it to a photo gallery. It’s not a contest, but rather designed to capture a moment of time with a variety of railroad-related images. This weekend was drizzly, damp, and chilly here in the Vancouver area and since a plane ticket was out of the question, I had to work with what I have. I opted for non-train photo.

You can view the entire RATW gallery of folks’ submissions at this link and here is the entry I posted:

Tonight I was able to take at least one halfway-decent picture after work, and one that’s just kind of an interesting subject. The weather here was bright sunny and beautiful until noon and then gradually got cloudier and cloudier, terminating in a nice bunch of gray sky and darkness around 5:30. Good thing I snuck out a bit early from work to take a photo.

My mission was fall colors. But first, the little switcher at the Columbia Business Park:

Onto colors… I drove several places without finding any before ending up somewhere that I had never shot a train. I think I ended up doing ok (at least worth saving) don’t you? Sure the lighting sucked, but I managed to pull off something halfway decent at ISO 400. I also shot a BNSF manifest on his tail (M-EVEPAS) but in the 5 minutes it took him to get there, the light had gone all to crap. So I give you… Amtrak 28:

Bah. I’m turning into Grumpy. The more I mature as a photographer, the more I realize how difficult it is to take a decent picture on a cloudy day. Shot myself a 3/4 grade crossing wedgie of the H-EVEBAR today at Jefferson Street. New arrangement for this train… 3 on the head end, 2 on the back. The shot was pitiful… I don’t think that the sky glows white in real life.

Instead I leave you with someone deboarding… this photo sucks too, poor colors and a big ol’ telephone pole popping right out the top of the coach. But trust me, the wedgie sucked worse, and I know y’all had been dying to see a new photo on this site.

It’s Wednesday… here’s the scorecard:

Monday: Cloudy. Trains. Shot blocked by semi at last seconds.
Tuesday: Sunny. No Trains. No shots.
Wednesday: Cloudy. Trains. Crappy high-noon gray-sky shots which may or may not get posted later.

Perhaps things will improve.

Imagine a Railroad Photography site where members submit photo essays for peer review. Only accepted essays are featured. All photos on the site are open for constructive critique. Members with extensive photography backgrounds participate in discussions about photographic technique and equipment. A site about photography first, railroads second.

This site is coming. Soon. I’m excited.

Recent events on a certain railroad discussion forum have caused quite a bit of discussion over photography critique and opinions over a photo. The guy who runs the site has a policy of not allowing unsolicited photography critiques, presumably in order to avoid flame wars or hurt feelings.

The more I think about the issue, and the further we get into the discussion, I keep coming back to one root thought: if you don’t want anyone to have an opinion about your photography, then don’t share it with anyone. If you want to share it, great. Just grow up and don’t bitch if people might not like it.

I’ve made it clear in my signature on that site that “Constructive criticism of my photos is always welcome.” Why as a photographer would I not want to hear others’ opinions on my work? Not thinking that one’s photography could possibly improve from feedback from others seems incredibly arrogant.

It’s sunny today, which means in a little while I’m going to go take some pictures on my lunch break. Tonight I’ll post them here, and, as always, you can feel free to tell me how good, or how shitty, they are.

Edit: No photos tonight. Apparently despite the fact that Vancouver is the busiest rail junction in the northwest, none of the trains needed to move during my lunch hour.

Today at lunch I caught wind of a KCS unit leading a grain empty. I’d love to post my picture, but after waiting half an hour for the shot, I had some assmunch in a semi pull right into my picture… apparently me standing in the road with my monopod and camera wasn’t clear enough for him… he just HAD to pull up that extra 10 feet so sit and wait for the train.

Nah, I’m not bitter…

I spent a bit of time today down at Vancouver center. A couple photos for your viewing pleasure…

First, a “Power Bar” ES44DC leads the H-EVEBAR9 out of town past the crossbuck at 11th street:

A leased SD40-2 leads a light power set headed for the M-EVEPAS. Photo taken while the power was on the middle lead.

Some of you are probably aware of Wikipedia. Some of you probably aren’t. It’s a community-authored and edited online encyclopedia process. Anyone can edit the pages, and the community process helps to ensure that someone doesn’t go do something stupid with the resulting documents.

I decided that it couldn’t hurt to spend a few minutes and share some of my railroad knowledge with the word. I went over to Wikipedia, looked at a couple topics for which I could make an intelligent contribution, and did so.

So far I have created two articles: Mount Hood Railroad and Lewis and Clark Railway

Another relatively uneventful lunch. Nothing at 8th street. Fairly gray weather so I didn’t play around with any artsy-fartsy shots. Well, that and the fact that I didn’t bring my camera. My new cell phone has a camera on it and I figure I might use it for grab shots in the future but nothing was worthy today.

The southbound M-EVEABN came through town with four units: A H2 C44-9W (yawn), ex-CP NREX SD40-2, green/black SD40-2, and a Heritage I geep.

I cruised up north to the shops, found four geeps sitting there, and dropped down to 39th street to see… yep… the H-EVEBAR was just pulling down, with two Dash 9s and a B40-8W on the head end.

Tomorrow I’ll try to bring my camera to at least get some sort of photo.

In preparing some material for a slideshow, I came across the fact that the inventor of the rotary snowplow was a man by the name of Orange Jull.

I really want to think that his name is more than casually related to that wonderful crushed ice beverage, the Orange Julius.

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t seem to support my conclusion, and instead the drink was supposedly named based on how it was ordered, and has nothing to do with rotary snowplows. I guess railroading isn’t quite as prevalent as this railfan had hoped.

Well the assorted random errands are done and so I was back trackside at lunch today. I sure hope today wasn’t an indication of the whole week, or I’ll need to be bringing a blanket so I can nap.

Only train moving while I was down at the wye was the northbound Cascades which came through right on time with a usual consist. Sitting at 8th street for the whole hour was a westbound manifest with a warbonnet Dash 9 and an ES44DC in Heritage 2 paint. Yawn.

I’ve begun putting together my presentation for a slideshow being hosted by a friend next month.

For me, putting together a show is usually a frustrating process. I think I’m too much of a perfectionist with my shows, always trying to find the “perfect” music to complement the subject and mood. I’m considering doing a hybrid music/narration show, with pre-recorded narration corresponding to parts of the show.

So far, I’ve narrowed it down to which photos I want to show. I have no idea on the music. The general theme is the Alaska Railroad… I had one song picked out but it’s being used by another presenter. Time for Plan B. I wish I knew what Plan B was.

I think Plan B is going to be a pre-recorded narration as I share a bit of history and give a brief tour through the Anchorage shops, then move onto a music background for the scenery shots. We’ll see…