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):
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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 
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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:
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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:
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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.
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