Archive for May, 2006

I’ve finished the planned software updates for the evening. Not too much has changed as seen by the end user, but I’m now running the latest version of WordPress and have updated several of the supporting plugins used on the site. I apologize to those of you who may have seen several past posts show up as new in your feed reader, it appears to have been a side effect of the upgrade.

I don’t often post links to other blog posts of train photos, but today Pubsub brought me this post from The Lope. Go check out the photos of UP 844 on her current trip throughout the midwest. Gawking at steam photos is fun, but I was quite amused by photo #2, the one showing the traffic that was chasing. Been there, done that. I hate driving during a steam chase. But go check out the photos… they’re great.

I’ll be upgrading/updating/trying-not-to-break various pieces of software tomorrow night starting around 20:00 or so and lasting until… until I’m done. If you see weird/funky things tomorrow (Wednesday) night, that’s why.

Sorry for the lack of any substantial updates here the last week or so… I’m still getting back in the swing of things after GorgeRail, dealing with feedback from this year, folks that want to present next year, wrapping up things from a financial standpoint, and other assorted excuses. And now onto the point of the post…

Dick Samuels operates former East Portland Tracktion #100 on the Oaks Bottom Excursion at GorgeRail 2006.

I didn’t do much railfanning at this year’s GorgeRail. I thought this was a decent shot until tonight when preparing it for this blog post, and I realized I got freeway-fucked. Oh well, I guess that’s an excuse to go do it again without a little red sedan in the photo.

The initial GorgeRail 2007 information including dates and potential presenter information has been posted to the GorgeRail website.

GorgeRail 2006 came and went. Overall I’d say it was a great success. Within the next few days I’ll have some photos and information up for next year on the official website but here’s my take on things. Highlights of the weekend included:

• The first official event was Kathi Kube’s workshop about TRAINS Magazine: How to Get Published. She covered what they’re looking for and provided quite a few “do’s” and “don’ts” for potential contributors. I was pleased to see a crowd of just over 30 people for this workshop.
• After a hasty lunch break (it’ll be longer next year, I promise) Paul Petersen presented an hour-long workshop on digital imaging. It could’ve easily been stretched a bit longer. Paul knows his stuff and enjoys expanding on topics to convey a wealth of understanding upon the group. Again, this was well attended with between 30 and 40 folks in the crowd.
• The feature slideshow program was excellent. We featured a variety of topics from a range of presenters that traveled from places like Maryland, Canada, and California as well as more local locations. From a technical standpoint, things went off without any major glitches. On a personal level, I was disappointed that many folks chose not to arrive for the earlier shows in the program. Those who missed Ken Storey’s China Steam missed an excellent presentation on a topic which is now history.
• The lasagna dinner was excellent, although like lunch, we need to allow a bit more time next year for folks to eat and socialize.
• For the second time in our four years, a major steam event announcement was made at GorgeRail. The SP 4449 will lead an excursion from Portland to Bend (and back) in September.
• Doyle’s after-dinner talk, in which he told stories of his adventures on the Freedom Train, was a highlight of the entire weekend. His sense of humor and railroading knowledge provide a great mix to entertain a crowd of fans.
• What happened at the bar with the staff after the show, stays at the bar with the staff after the show
• The open house and excursion put on by Dick Samuels on the Oregon Pacific Railroad was excellent. He had all of his equipment lined up along the road for photography, and we piled about 50 people onto the 100 and caboose for a trip to Oaks Bottom and back.
• The folks at the Brooklyn Roundhouse went all-out and put on a great display. Kudos to the Friends of 4449, PRPA, ORHF, and others who helped set things up. The GorgeRail folks descended onto the roundhouse and found that in addition to the steam locomotives inside, the GN F unit had been coupled to the two Empire Builder cars for a “mini builder”, and there was a nice colorful assortment of staggered power out back with the F40PHR231, Doyle’s PA, Doyle’s “bumblebee” RSD-5, and a PSAP GP30 which was there for servicing.

I’d like to thank everyone involved, including our presenters, staff, door prize donators, and the folks at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center who were very responsive to our every need. From a financial standpoint, GorgeRail more than broke even. We made a decent-sized donation to Dick Samuels to help offset the fuel costs for the OPRR trip, and the remaining proceeds will be donated to the ORHF.

Mark your calendar for May 18-20, 2007 for next year’s GorgeRail.

• 10 months of planning
• 106 attendees pre-registered
• 11 multimedia presentations
• 1 featured speaker
• 2 workshops
• 2 local artists
• 1 shortline tour & mini-excursion
• 1 historic roundhouse tour with 3 steam locomotives
• 2 photo meets
• 1 lasagna dinner for the 80% of the attendees who are choosing to eat with the group
• over 25 door prizes
• free copies of TRAINS magazine and discount coupons for the Mt. Hood Railroad for everyone

It’s go time. See you in The Dalles.

Photography Jam has a good article about the three basics: Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO. If you buy into my theory that you need to understand the basics before you go wild with Photoshop, this article is a good starting point.

Luminous Landscape has done an extensive test comparing medium-format digital backs along with traditional 4×5 cameras. They compare backs from Phase One, Canon’s high-end DSLRs, a few selections from Linhof, along with the Hasselblad H1 and Mamiya 645.

I don’t feel that I’m qualified to comment much on this, but it’s interesting reading if you want to find out more about the big boys of digital. 39 megapixels, anyone?

Read the article here

Am I the only photographer who is for the most part quite plugged-in to the whole digital Web2.0 world that doesn’t ever use Flickr for anything?

Today was Orange Geep day during my lunch hour at the Vancouver depot:

From the images I cataloged tonight… a Portland Streetcar passes through Portland State University on 11/18/2001.

Prompted by the death of Rob Carlson, Steve Sloan is posting up old Track Warrants, which was a railfan e-zine he posted “back in the day”. Steve is a California railfan who was the man behind Flimsies, and his Track Warrants were arguably the predecessor to what became the Altamont Press Newsline. Go check them out for a bit of railfan internet history.

From Photodoto: metering and obtaining a correct exposure.

This falls in the “stuff you should understand” category as well as the “What the heck is a histogram” category.

• Canon Lens Comparison chart
  Compare two 100% crops of Canon lenses
  (tags: canon lenses photography)
• The Digital Story: Roundup: Photography Tips
  A collection of tips for photography; some are digital-specific
  (tags: photography imaging tutorials)

Recently someone expressed disappointment on RailroadForums because his RAW converter couldn’t fix poor photos. I ended up going on a brief rant that I thought I would expand upon here.

Digital photography is photography first, and digital second.

Think about that a bit. It means that digital photography is more about photo techniques and skill than it is about digital manipulation and computers. It means one needs to spend more time thinking about composition and exposure than how to use the clone tool in Photoshop.

While it’s true that instead of recording an image on film in a traditional camera, a digital camera records an image on a sensor and then to a memory card, the “digital”portion of digital photography essentially replaces the darkroom and development processes of traditional slide or film photography. The most important thing remains the capturing of the image at the time the shutter is opened.

In the computer field, there’s a term called GIGO, meaning “Garbage in, garbage out”. Applying this to photography, the meaning is that if one starts with a poor photo, digital processing won’t be able to turn it into a great shot. It is far better to begin with a properly exposed and technically correct photo than it is to start out needing to “fix” things just to make the photo usable.

Where do you start? By learning about photography. The traditional elements of taking a photo haven’t changed just because the image is recorded onto a memory card instead of film. Here’s my advice to someone who wants to improve their photography:

Learn about exposure and shutter speeds. Learn about depth of field. Learn about white balance. Learn about what the ISO number means. Then learn about how your particular camera allows these items to be adjusted. Learn about the different shooting “modes” that exist on your camera. Learn what it means to use shutter-priority, aperture-priority, and manual modes, and when it’s appropriate to use each. Learn what a histogram is, and learn how to view an image histogram on your camera so that you can make adjustments “in the field”. Learn about composition, including the rule of thirds, framing, image balance, and the golden mean.

You’ll notice that not a single thing mentioned in the previous paragraph has anything to do with computers or Photoshop.

Photoshop can be used to polish up a photo and make slight adjustments after the fact, but nothing beats doing it right the first time in the field. Photography is photography and the elements of photography haven’t changed. A post today on the Philosophy of Photography forum at photo.net talks about the photographically illiterate and how it’s the same with traditional film or with digital.

I challenge all digital photographers to become better photographers foremost, and worry about digital less.

I came home from work today to find 65 pounds worth of stuff from Kalmbach sitting at my house. Almost all of it is freebies or door prizes for GorgeRail.

Got your ticket?

Saw this today at the Vancouver Yard. I think this is the first ex-MRL unit I’ve seen with these reporting marks.

Here’s a couple photos from Sunday on the Union Pacific La Grande Sub in eastern Oregon…

An eastbound manifest eases down a rare tangent section of track approaching Perry

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A stack train works through one of the many S curves in the mountains near Motanic

My partners in crime have started posting a few of their photos over on RailroadForums. You’ll see more photos from this trip in my gallery and on SteveEshom.com as well.