I am making the transition from a scrapbook photographer to a respectable rail fan photographer. Well, I'm becoming a GREAT scrapbook photographer! As you see from the first picture, old habits die hard! I took that at the end of a few days of rail fanning. The wild flowers growing in the gravel by the tracks - what an AWESOME background!
I'm certainly not trying to compete with my mentor! David Patch has had his work published in train magazines, and this is a HOBBY to him! But who better to rekindle my passion for the rails?
I've always loved the romantic images from the heyday of passenger service and steam powered iron horses streaming through the night as glorified in the Saxon song "Princess Of The Night." As I burn the midnight oil on a sultry late spring night, I can hear the train whistle from the tracks a mile away drift across the warm air with it's midnight serenade through the open window. Those nearby tracks have been one of the perfections about the city I've called home for the past 30 years! Right after trade school I had interviewed with a company in Marietta, Georgia that produces train videos. It would have been a great job, but I was a little too green for the challenge at that time. I wanted to pursue my train hobby more thoroughly, but I didn't really have anyone who supported me in the endeavor. Now I do!
The following are my favorites from my first few weeks as a rail fan photography "intern." Even I can recognize some of the imperfections in my composition and timing, but for a scrapbook photographer with a digital point and shoot, I think my first efforts aren't bad at all!
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The Celebrity Engine Norfolk Southern engine 3329 was specially painted
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Various normal parts of everyday rail life like
the signal here add to a photo - But watch out
for those wires!
But unobstructed pure nature is fabulous!
A tail of John Deere combines behind the engine made this train look like a giant green caterpillar!
Number one lesson I learned as an intern: "If you're gonna bother with taking the picture, do it right!"
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David demonstrates the secret to getting the right perspective
I haven't heard the official critique on these ones, but I find I'm attracted to the things in the foreground that seem to "make" the composition!
