photo technique

Summer Solstice at Fields – The Making Of

by Steve Eshom on July 21, 2011

A few weeks ago I posted a time lapse video to Facebook for my friends there. It isn’t all the remarkable of a time lapse but does have a quite the story behind it.

I knew there was a southbound out of Eugene and I had an idea for a time lapse sequence up at tunnel 6. I drove up there as the sun was setting which would give me time to get set up while it was still light. As I turned onto the road to tunnel 6 I had to stop. There was a 2′ high snow drift across the road and I was stymied. No time lapse at tunnel 6. Strike 1.

I decided to head back down to Fields and set up there for a time lapse sequence. I drove into the open area of the Fields slide and proceeded to set up my gear. It was more dark now so a light was required. I began to pull my gear out of the Yukon and suddenly realized something was missing. I checked several spots in the rig. Sure enough, I’d left my tripod at home. Strike 2.

I stood there for several minutes listening to the train climb up through McCredie Springs. I criticized my packing skills using some colorful language and pretty much figured I was doomed for any night photos. I then sat in the rig and sulked for a bit. Game off.

Then it hit me. I could use something to set the camera on and get it above the level of the grass in the field. But what? The 5 gallon water jug I carry for extra water would work! Game on! I pulled it out and found an appropriate place to set it up. I set the camera on it and looked through the viewfinder. Not bad! I grabbed a small piece of wood to prop the lens up a bit and composition wise I was in business. A few test shots later and I was ready for a train.

Since the train sounded to be all EMD I grabbed the Zoom H4n and prepped it for recording. Of course the stand for it was at home next to the tripod. Strike 3. I choose to just set it on the ground about 100 feet from where I stood with the camera.

When the train came out of tunnel 18 I turned on the recorder and headed back to the camera. DON’T BUMP THE CAMERA! I picked up the remote did another test shot and then waited for the train to come out of tunnel 17 to begin firing. Through all 84 images I took I kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t bump something and mess it up. I moved slowly and carefully and everything seemed to go fine.

After the DP went out of sight around the corner to tunnel 16 I ceased firing and felt comfortable picking up the camera to see what I’d done. A quick pass through and every thing seemed OK. Whew, I think I pulled it off! I stood there for at least another 5 minutes and let the Zoom record the sound of the train climbing up through Fields and finally shut it off after the DP went through ‘downtown’ Fields.

Despite being out on strikes I was still able to cobble together something pretty cool. At one moment I figured I was going to be totally out of the night photo game but the scout in me kicked in and I tried something on a whim that worked well. Now it is time to go build a check list so I don’t forget stuff like this again!

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Old School Challenge

by Steve Eshom on May 31, 2010

Coming on the heels of me finding some slides from the 90s, Scott Kelby announced a photo challenge which took me back to those “shoot and hope” days. Essentially the challenge was to shoot 24 or 36 images and not review the images until at least 24 hours after shooting. This means no chimping, checking the historgram, or test shots. Do it old school! I chose to participate with some images shot in my back yard and the image above from the near the Vancouver depot.

What did I get from this challenge? I was reminded of some of my frustrations from the 80s and 90s where I really wanted to know how things turned out when I took the shot. There was no LCD on my AE-1 and this challenge reminded me of that helpless feeling.

I was also reminded that in film days experimentation was expensive because there was a cost for each photo for the film and developing. Being too snap happy could be costly. In the digital era, if you really don’t like the image you can just delete it and nothing is lost. For me this means experimentation is free and with experimentation (or call it trial and error) I get better. This is something I really enjoy about digital and am thankful for everyday.

Fortunately my other frustration with film, that lack of ability to edit or correct and image, was not realized because I still had to use Lightroom to get the image off the camera. I chose however to only use the ‘Auto’ button for the challenge. Still the ability to make further corrections or be creative exists and that I’m happy about.

And now back to the 21st century….

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Organized?

by Steve Eshom on May 28, 2010

UP 3985 passes under I-84 east of Meacham, Oregon on June 13, 1993

Most of you that have been around me for a while know I’m pretty organized. My vehicle is always clean with no trash on the floor, my gear is always in order, and I can always find my timetables. If you were to ask me about any of my 20K + images I could find them in an instant thanks to good keywords and organization in Lightroom.

If this was your impression of me you were mostly right.

Last weekend while cleaning one our closets I found the box that I kept my old slide trays in. It was time to be rid of the trays, projector, and screen as neither had been used since September 1994. How do I know that date so precisely? Well, inside one of the trays was a 57 Kodalux developed slides with SEP 94 stamped on them.

From what I can recall I loaded the slides in trays to show right after I got them back from developing. Just like anyone else I wanted to see how I’d done (ahem, 2 weeks later, I really like digital). For whatever reason I never took the next step and unloaded them from the tray and put them in the archival sleeves that the rest of my slide collection is in. It also seems I never made any notes on them in my notebook either at capture time or later on when I reviewed them.

What a mess! At least what a mess for me.

Did I miss these slides? Well, apparently not. When I found them, I did recall taking them and many of the details about them (save for some of the dates, thanks Mom & Dad!). I think in my mind I’d written them off because I recall a roll of film being accidentally ruined around 2000. I never expected to come across them. I’m happy I did.

After scanning, adding to Lightroom, and key wording I tucked the stray slides into the archival sleeves for safe keeping. Now that everything is in order again you can go back to thinking I’m really organized.

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Influence and Inspiration

by Steve Eshom on November 30, 2009

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What influences your photographs? What is your inspiration?

After the Autumn Leaf Slideshow those were questions that lingered in my mind after seeing some fabulous photographs and presentations. As it ends up I spent parts of the day after the slideshow with Ryan Dadgari and Scott Lothes discussing these very issues. Did I get all the answers and secrets? Not exactly. What I did get from discussing railroad photography was influence and inspiration. Here’s a few words from the discussion that are helping drive some of my photographs.

context
environment
people
story
motion
size
purpose

That Sunday was a time for growth. Thanks guys!

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, photography, influence, inspiration

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Photographing On A Cloudy Day

by Steve Eshom on November 23, 2009

Reader Paige asked in the comments to my Making the Most of a Cloudy Day post about how to photograph trains on a cloudy day. His question prompted me to put together my thoughts on the topic…

The first thing to understand is what the clouds do. They essentially act as a diffuser for the sun and provide a much more even light over the subject and background. Depending on the thickness of the clouds minor shadows may exist or none may be present which can open up opportunities that wouldn’t normally exist on a sunny day.

The thickness of the clouds also regulates the brightness of the scene. For example some of our dreary Northwest days have very little light thanks to very thick clouds which contain lots of moisture. As a contrast east of the mountains, where more moisture is wrung out of the clouds, a high overcast will exists which lets plenty of light through providing more brightness.

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High overcast in eastern Oregon provides reasonably even, diffused light on the subject.

On a cloudy day dramatic light and beautiful skies are not not something that will be in play. These factors usually cause me to focus more intimately on the subject. I’ll zoom more closely to eliminate an even and generic gray sky. I find a cloudy day is a good day to focus on details as the light can be very even which allows the entire scene to be lit at the same brightness.

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Thanks to even light everywhere detail photos look fabulous on cloudy days.

On the other hand the clouds can be part of the subject. They provide an excellent top frame and when the clouds are interesting I’ll work to include them to give a sense of the day to the image. Clouds and rain are part of our environment so including them as part of the photo is certainly something that can add impact and help explain something about the subject. When I was a kid the BN suffered a slide on Stevens Pass and a news photographer was on scene to capture the train stopped at the slide. In the photo the rain drops and the gray skies were both visible which just added so much more context to the mud across the tracks.

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Clouds can be part of the subject to offer framing or drama.

Behind the camera I tend to make the same exposure decisions I would make on any other day to get the best exposure on the subject. I determine what is more important about the scene and set my aperture, shutter, and ISO to match. Since cloudy days are often darker I find myself using higher ISOs. Generally photos exposed properly at high ISO don’t exhibit the amount of noise you see in a darker image so I don’t hesitate to head up to ISO 800 now and then (ISO 800 is the practical upper limit on my 20D). As with any photograph, I will take a few test photos to make sure my exposure choices are appearing on the back of the camera to be what I’m looking for.

Cloudy days are a good time to practice exposing to the right. I usually expose my images to the point where the brightest part of the scene just starts to get blown out (the red blinking areas on the image when viewing the histogram). This usually offers the best balance of light and dark areas and gives me something to work with in post. On cloudy days using this method will help to draw the maximum brightness out of a scene without over exposing.

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Exposing to the right without blowing out highlights too much.

In Lightroom I use the same techniques as I would with any other photo. Since the colors tend to appear more saturated in a cloudy day photo I watch very carefully how much vibrance or how deep the tone curve is I apply. I tend to keep less contrast in a cloudy day photo to help bring out the details that are hiding in the depth of the shadows. Since our train subjects tend to be a bit dark on cloudy days I will also use the local adjustment brush to brush in a bit of brightness or to reduce contrast on the subject. Many times just a touch of brightness on the subject will really make it stand out from the flatness of the rest of the scene. Clouds can also become a bit washed out with exposing to the right so I’ll use the local adjustment brush on them too to bring them back to look natural.

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Judicious use of the adjustment brush on cloudy day subjects can bring them out of the darkness. Final output is here.

Those are my thoughts on cloudy days. As with much of photography there isn’t necessarily a formula but I find these guidelines work for me. By all means if something moves you to do something that seems contrary because you think the product will be something special, DO IT! Photography is about creating so step outside of the norms and capture it your way.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, photo, photography, lightroom, cloudy, weather, technique