Archive for July, 2007

As I am currently preparing for a weekend photography trip, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to post some of my checklist and see what other folks do to prepare. Here are the things I consider and prepare when venturing out to take photos:

1. Charge things. Camera, radio, cell phone, and any other electronic gadgets.
2. If spending the night, pack those chargers into the duffel bag / suitcase.
3. Find radio frequencies. Look up the radio frequencies for any rail lines in the area and be sure those frequencies are available on my radio. It’s nice to have a radio that can store all of the AAR channels so you don’t have to worry about reprogramming things when you go to a new area.
4. Prepare your information.  Maps, timetables, lineups, or other material that will help you spend more time shooting and less time wondering.
5. Pack for the weather. Not really railfanning-specific, but smart nonetheless. You’ll want to have appropriate clothing.
6. Bring along your paperwork for hotel confirmations, airline e-tickets, etc.
7. Clean camera equipment. Any sensor dust that needs to be removed? How are your lenses looking? It’s a lot easier to clean things in a calm room at home than on the road.
8. Pack food for lunches.  There’s no sense in interrupting your photography to drive to town and eat some fast food.  Pack some nonperishable items that can be eaten trackside throughout the day.

What do you think? Are there other things you do to prepare? Please leave a comment and share…

Every time I’ve looked at this photo since I shot it in 1988 I’ve chuckled to myself. At that point I’d had my 70-200 zoom a mere four months and had shot just a handful of photos with it. Clearly I hadn’t mastered the art of using a zoom lens to do something other than get close to a subject. I place this photo in my ‘learning experience’ category.

BN’s Highball rounds a curve north of Garfield, WA

As with everything I do, I always seem to keep refining my work flow as I learn new things or become dissatisfied with existing processes. My Lightroom work flow is no different. For now though I’ve settled on the following process that takes me from import to final product.

I. Import - I use Adobe Photoshop Elements Organizer as my primary media browser so when I import I import my images into it.

1. On initial import assign an Event (synonym for a shoot)
2. Assign location, engine numbers, people’s names, and captions to my images as time permits

II. Editing (Lightroom 1.1 Library)

1. Import selected images into LR
2. Assign image to a Collection of the same name as the Organizer Event
3. Use Library features (ratings, quick collections, slide shows) to find best images

III. Editing (Lightroom 1.1 Develop) - (every photo is different, so steps below are for the most part used every time)

1. Capture Sharpen
2. Set White Balance (either through dropper or Temp/Tint sliders)
3. Set Blacks
4. Set Clarity
5. Crop/Straigten(varies)
6. Clone/Heal(varies)
7. Set Tone Curve (varies)
8. Set HSL (varies)
9. Set Vibrance (varies)
10. Set Noise Reduction (varies)

IV. Export (Lightroom 1.1 Library) - (I’ve created presets for all my normal output formats)

1. Export will convert from ProPhoto RGB color space to RGB
2. In the export dialog chose the output size
3. In the export dialog chose to open in Elements

V. Edit in Elements

1. Apply edits as necessary. Generally this is limited to adding a standard copyright notice.
2. Final sharpen
3. Save

Simple….

Yesterday morning I was sitting at work and got an instant message from Steve saying that he heard the SP&S 700 on the radio going past an approach signal at MP 769.  Since that’s about five blocks from my office, I decided it was a good time for a break and headed that way in a brisk walk.  The locomotive was onto the OPR, and unfortunately unless I was going to trespass my photo angle would be aiming southeast into the sun.  I believe the term “craptastic” applies, but hey, it’s a steam train, so I’m going to post it.

Some folks on a certain railroad photography mailing list are all up in arms about the fact that the new issue of TRAINS magazine features a streetcar on the cover.  If that bothers you, skip this post.

Last Saturday I spent a couple hours near downtown Portland taking some night photos.  Several of them involved the TriMet MAX light rail trains in the area.

First is my favorite from the evening, shot from a ramp up to the Steel Bridge with a long exposure as traffic stops and a train passes:

The following set of images were shot at the Old Town / Chinatown MAX station over a period of half an hour with a variety of platform activity and passing trains:

It was fun to shoot something a little different in the urban environment.

While I was perusing the Judith Basin County museum in Stanford, MT I ran across this photo of a modern ‘grain train’ next to the elevator in town. Since the elevator is under construction and the fact the modern Stanford town site was created around railroad I’m presuming this ‘grain train’ was pictured in the teens when the GN built the line through town. Who says the unit grain train was a creation of the 1970s?

Steam Powered Grain Train at Stanford, MT

Lots of folks love to bash Railpictures.net.  Sure, the site’s claims of being “The best railroad photos on the ‘net” are perhaps a bit ego-centric, but the reality is that they host a lot of photos, and like most other photo repositories on the internet, some of the photos are pretty good.  If you check out the most popular photos and the People’s Choice winners, you probably won’t be disappointed.

A lot of photographers won’t submit work to their site because they don’t feel the accept/reject judging is done correctly.  My attitude: who cares?  Do I agree with all of their decisions?  Of course not. I know whether or not I like a photo.  If I post it to their site, and they like it as well, then I get more exposure for my work.  If they reject the photo (for whatever reason), then I haven’t lost anything, and perhaps their reason for rejection could spur some thought.

I’ve sold a few photos to magazines based on exposure on their site.  And now they have twice chosen one of my pictures as their “Photo of the Week” featured on the site homepage.

So while some folks sit back and complain, I’ll take the free publicity.

One of the most common scenes along the railroad in this part of Montana is the grain elevator. At one time every little town had one and the funny thing is most still exist despite thier replacement by more modern facilities. With the lack of trees in these parts it certainly makes locating the railroad easy as you can stand on any high point and look for the line of elevators. They of course make a great backdrop for modern day railroad photos.

There are four elevators in Stanford. Three are clustered together near ‘downtown’ and another modern facility, capable of loading 110 car trains, is located north of town along with a seed facility. They are certainly the epitome of old and new.

Old Stanford Elevator

New Stanford Elevator and Square Butte

At Moccasin, MT (20 miles south) another modern elevator exists and has a loop for loading full grain trains. On Thursday an empty was delivered there and was partially loaded during the day Friday. This facility sits adjacent to the Central Montana RR interchange.

New Moccasin Elevator

On Saturday we made the two hour trek to Conrad, MT so my mother-in-law could teach a painting class. I took advantage of the trip to see the Great Falls sub. Up there the scheduling is a bit different as the M-LAUSWE leaves Great Falls early in the morning and the M-SWELAU arrives Great Falls sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Our timing was good and not so good. I was able to capture the M-LAUSWE north of Conrad, but unfortunately I missed it crossing the two trestles over Muddy Creek and the Teton River at Collins. Something for next time I guess.

Elevators at Ledger, MT

Sadly this is my final day in Stanford. Look for more photos from this trip here and in my gallery.