January 2006

After over a month of wet gray weather, the sun returned to Vancouver for a few days. Yesterday while at 8th street I shot a Chicago-bound stack train. This photo bugs the hell out of me. As a photographer, one of the issues with composing a decent photo is trying to get things level. Things which are horizontal in real life should be horizontal in the photo. Things which are vertical in real life should be vertical in the photo. When things that should be, aren’t, the shit hits the fan and it annoys the hell out of me. I looked at this one long and hard using the grid in Photoshop. The damn train is crooked. Apparently it was crooked in real life. The preponderance of vertical things (power poles, signal masts, and building corners) are straight as verified by my Photoshop gridlines. The train is just plain crooked. I guess I should be pleased it’s an accurate photograph, I just wish I was more pleased with the real world it represents.

The sunny weather yesterday was replaced today by a nice heavy rain with a bit of wind. Yesterday I had to worry about sun angles and shadows, today my main concern was with keeping my equipment dry and avoiding raindrops on the glass. I was doing a quick drive around the Vancouver shops when I got a message from a friend that there was a UP Officer’s Special southbound at Ridgefield. The lighting was crap, the weather was crap, but a poor photo beats no photo, at least from a railfan’s perspective. I drove down to the center and got a couple shots of the UP 8358 with the Stanford and Sunset. You can get a feel for the weather from the color of the sky, the color of the background objects, and the ditch lights reflecting off the platforms.

Update: In a comment, Mike asked if the train was occupied. It was. I didn’t see activity in the Stanford, but there were several folks in the Sunset, including one who gave me a nice hearty wave from the rear observation window. The train was later referred to on the radio as the “Vice President’s Special”.

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