Simple Geometric

I haven't posted in a while, but in advance of doing a major post I want to do an appreciation of an image, this one by Nick Suydam (link to captioned flickr version here, website here).

Everyone has their own preferences in what a nice image should look like, and this one pushes several of my buttons. First, the simple but strong geometry, with the arc of the gently curved rails as the dominant element and the straight of the road as the contrasting one, with of course the block of the train. Second is the color, the strong primary blue and red of the train for sure, and of course contrasted against the white snow they look great! But I like the detail colors too, the yellow of the bollard posts in front of the building, the green dot of the ground signal, the crimson of the car. Beyond that the setting is nice, snow is always great, especially fresh enough to cover some cars. The tight dimensions are interesting too, the tracks close to the building up to and also to the corner intruding lower right.

It's not a perfect shot; it seems top-heavy - yet I wouldn't want to cut anything off the bottom, and not really anything off the top either. But I like it, it provides great pleasure, it is up my alley, it is worthy of revisiting. It also teaches me another nugget about seeing images and seeing through my camera. Well done!

"100 Greatest Railroad Photos" Part III (Edited)

This post continues the one immediately below, discussing the images in the Trains magazine publication "100 Greatest Railroad Photos."

The final section of the publication, "Environment," features not just scenic shots but also shots that show the railroad in its environment. Some or many of the compositions have much in common with what one might call the standard rail scenic shot, done well.

The Jilson numberboard closeup (page 92) depicts cold weather railroading nicely; I like the streaks of moving snow in the headlight beam. The Acton glint shot is nice but to my eye standard. The unusual frosty look in the Holmes WP shot makes up for it being a standard wedgie, and does not distract from the Stan Kistler under-the-cars view, which is creative and has nice BW contrasts, taking advantage of an extremely sharp (and temporary) curve.

On page 98 Philip Weibler's Chicago commuter scene, in the single train, the many tracks, the snow, the soft focus, reminds me of a classic photography scene from maybe a century ago by a big name photographer whose name I cannot recall. So I will insert that information down the road when it finally comes back to me. [EDIT: It came to me! It's the shot shown here, by Alfred Steiglitz, called "New York Central Yard" from the 1900s. Is it similar? Well, maybe, maybe not, but one made me think of the other. Link to a captioned version here.]

I don't happen to find the Tehachapi shot "magical" in part because I have seen versions of that shot a number of times, and in part because streaks of light winding around make it a fine technical work but not particularly artistic. The shot doesn't move me. The Hellman steel mill shot, page 104, is a well-done view of the inner workings. Scott Lothes' Hawks Nest shot is extremely well done, with the dawn sky reflecting in the river and the patches of ice on the water providing added texture.

I'm not a fan of the Rasmussen caboose loop shot; it seems out of balance. It documents the loop well but that is all. The other shots do little for me, and the closing Solomon sunset shot is too simplistic a composition to catch my eye despite the beautiful colors.

Can you tell I am not moved by this set of shots? What is lacking? The main thing is that the compositions are not interesting - there is a low weight on artistry as compared to documentation, especially a problem for the section of the collection where documentation is least important. Although there are relevant documentation shots, such as the Charles Brewster shot of a train going up Saluda (page 107). So the issue is really that I am expecting to see more on the artistic side, whether classic landscape or otherwise, and I am not seeing it. (Toward that end, where is the fantastic taconite yard shot by Dave Schauer with the steam rising off the cars and spreading over the yard? Unbelievable that one is not considered one of the top 100 appearing in Trains!) As a secondary matter, I don't see much in the way of vivid color (which I will admit a bias towards) or interesting light.

I'll do a summary in a fourth post.

"100 Greatest Railroad Photos" Part II

This post continues the one immediately below, discussing the images in the Trains magazine publication "100 Greatest Railroad Photos."

The third section of the publication, "Locomotives," is for me the most disappointing section, as I only found two images there of real interest. Frank Barry's Big Boy shot on page 51 interests me because in a way it is a high-key shot, with dark engine against white ground, sky, and even signals, although the up from the ground angle does leave it imbalanced, bottom heavy. The Steinheimer shot on page 54, on the other hand, is all a shot should be, black water crane against the main light source, light gray engine, dark gray sky, almost white steam, a fabulous series of contrasts with an interesting composition to boot. A beauty!

The remaining shots in this section are either documentary (nice N&W Y6's! The RGS shot is interesting for the brakeman riding the pilot) or wedges and other common views. Some of the material is topically quite interesting (a special kudo for including the Mingo Junction Alco's - I visited there at around that time as a teenager!) but not visually so.

The People section is of mixed interest. A straight person-doing-the-job shot doesn't generally interest me (two operator shots, an engineer shot, some track workers, a magazine-reading smoker in a station) and few of the shots represent compelling portraiture or action. There is little art in many of the shots here, in my view.

A few shots do catch my eye, the first being the Plowden shot of the coal pouring into a tender (and I'm not even a Plowden fan, really).The overhead shot of the Grand Central concourse is a nice abstract. Also, for some reason I am taken by the signal maintainer with the blurred train, which conveys some of the effort of making a RR go. It is documentary; I don't think it evokes any feelings of hardship or cold or something else, but I do like it.

Starting on page 85 it gets more interesting. I like the overhead shot of the track worker; it has simple lines and a nice contrast between color and bland. Furthermore, it reminds me of a favorite person/abstract shot, this one by MJ Scanlon (link only; I will try to get permission to do an embedded image soon).

The really interesting shot is on the next page, a brakeman gazing out upon the land. He has an alert look, not smiling but somehow appears to be pleased to be where he is, doing what he is doing (but is my opinion swayed by having read the caption?). The light on his face and the shade on the side is perfect and the curve of the train and the light on the land emphasize the open spaces feel. Nice portraiture, it offers a story.

The next shot is also nice, a platform action shot that is nicely framed internally and has excellent depth and movement, and the turned head of the lady is well-timed. Turning the page, the office shot is a nice view of the trappings of power: inner office, outer office, cigar (?), huge desk. Page 89 has a nice shot of traveling children, one asleep, one casually draping his arm.

I'm generally not a fan of the kid-looking-at-the-train shot, too much a cliche, but the presence and low position of the child on page 90 wonderfully highlights the size of the enormous drivers.

In the final part of what turns out to be a trilogy of posts, I will review the Environment section and then write a few things about photography then and now.

"100 Greatest Railroad Photos"

It seems appropriate to say a few things about the Trains magazine special issue "100 Greatest Railroad Photos." By nature I get irritated by hype of all sorts, and while Trains has been an important venue in the hobby, it is of course ridiculous to choose the top 100 but restrict the selection to those shots. I'll try to let that go. :)

My tastes in shots differ significantly, however, as does my definition of greatest. I am not particularly interested in historical impact, for example. So, while I respect the work of Lucius Beebe and the efforts earlier in RR photography history to orient the hobby away from roster shots, today I look at the shot on page 4 and I see a boring steam wedgie. Just think of how far we've come since then!

Many of the shots are not especially artistic but rather document the industry. They are good photographs, and as documentation of a changing industry is central to the photographic efforts of many, some will consider them great photographs, but they don't interest me here. One such example is the GP-30 shot on page 69. I love the GP-30 but this shot doesn't move me; the framing is conventional, the detail sparse due to darkness, and the worker not particularly engaged in the scene. Another example is the shot spread across pages 70-71 of the M&IR articulated. It is framed competently and having the train on bridge over another track is of some interest but ultimately this is a roster shot of an elevated engine and, while a grand engine it is!, the shot doesn't do much for me as a photograph. No matter, others will enjoy those more and some of my favorites less.

So, the intro is done; what shots are particularly compelling, at least to this observer's eye? I start on page 10 with John Gruber's backlit steamer with the dazzling white fringe on the darkplume and the backlit engine framed in white steam. So nice! (For those of you equally taken by the night Morant's curve shot on the previous page, I simply don't much care for light streak shots, although here the moonlighting, to coin a meaning, is really interesting.)

The spread on pages 18-19 of the Mojave at dusk is really nice, great textures, different shadings of the dominant color, and the trains spread out everywhere, with a lumpy hill in the middleground adding visual contrast. Beautiful, Mark Hemphill! The Greg McDonnell plow and tree across pages 22 and 23 is nice but a bit dark and a bit too formless on the right side to be really compelling, despite the action; I prefer the Lew Ableidinger shots I features a few months ago.

Moving from the "Action" section to the "Icons" section, the issue leads with the tremendous Steinheimer shot (page 28) of the hand and stopwatch. What a hand! What an interesting hand, what work it has done! Page 32 has a fascinating view of the observation car on the 20th Century Limited, by Don Wood, with much to think about in terms of lifestyle and travel. Wonderfully framed.

The page 34-35 spread pacing a warbonnet is very nice; the background holds enough detail to convey context, and catching the engineer looking back at his train adds a nice reverse touch to the dominant left to right movement. By Linn Westcott.

The "under the car" shot by J. Parker Lamb on page 39 is very nice; the engine, the boy on the bicycle, the repeated framework under the roof, but I am turned off by the proximity of the camera to the nearby rail and the unusual appearance of that rail, sunk a bit below ground level or below the level of some sort of surface with a rough edge. The bottom foreground just takes too much attention. (There is a later "under the cars" shot which is really great.)

The final shot here that really captures my attention is the winter depot shot by Mel Patrick, pages 42-43. Foreground passengers in silhouette, middleground passengers and conductor lit, great textures in the stonework, steam coming off the train from the heating system. It is interesting that the people are disengaged from the train, despite some carrying suitcases. Where are they coming from, and going to?

I've only reviewed two out of five sections! I'll blog about the rest soon, and go back and write about how these images relate to those I view today, and some reactions to those images that don't meet my personal "greatest" standard.

My comments continue in Part II.

[Sorry for not having blogged for a while. Big push at work. I'll try to do better. J]

Backlit + Background

Sometimes I notice an image, find it interesting, and then I notice other images in the same style or with the same theme. One such occasion was when I was viewing the 2008 winners of the CRPA contest. I realized the tremendous power of backlit photography with strong/detailed backgrounds.

We all have seen lots and lots of images where the train is strongly backlit or in silhouette. Generally, these images contrast a dramatic dawn/dusk sky with lots of great color against the black of the train. Compositionally they are often somewhat simple: a wedge of a train against a simple background, sky with maybe a treeline or distant mountain ridge, with some interesting clouds.

What has caught my interest is the possibility for a different sort of background, one that is more of a secondary element or even co-main subject, to support the subject. Thus, the subject, being backlit/silhouetted, may have some detail or only provide a shape, but the background provides a secondary element which contrasts not only in light but in having interesting detail.

Consider the shot above by Peter Lerro (captioned version here). It is a classic backlit image. But look at the background, what an interesting hillside! Not only the several structures, but also the line of the valley and the splash of light on the field between the engine and barn. The barn complements the train and itself is a combination of darker and lighter elements. The background livens things up. (As does the presence of detail on the visible dark side of the train.) The shot does not tend toward the abstract nearly as much as silhouette shots do.

I like the shot - very much - but it only pushes part of the way toward the sort of image I am thinking of. So consider this shot by Travis Dewitz (captioned version here). The background is strong with the grain elevator (but gets a bit muddled with what Travis calls a "utility mess"). But the train is small and is not backlit but rather sidelit, and thus does not have the dramatic separation from the background that attracts me to these types of shots (and I find the presence of the shack at the right too strong and also uninteresting).

What I love is this shot, part of the gold medal-winning portfolio submitted by Olaf Haensch for the 2008 CRPA competition. The engine is in full silhouette but has interesting edge detail. The background is well lit for a night shot and has impressive texture and details and just a touch of color. Putting a steaming train in front of it in a daylight shot would be just fine but the contrast offered by the dark train (and dark sky) makes the building leap out. The contrast also increases the sense of depth, as I suspect that a daylight shot would not have the same strong feel of separation between the train in front and the building behind.

Great details pervade the scene: the (lancet?) arches of the windows and doors, the two tones in the plume, the puddle reflections. But those are specifics, combining into an overall effect which conveys a strong sense of fine beauty, of the angel in the details. Click on it, take a look at a larger version, very well done!

Chris Crook: Complexity

Lately I've been doing a lot of blogging on black/white pictures. That is sort of odd as I love color, but life is random sometimes, bad teams have winning streaks, and here we are. So I wanted to inject a bit of color (besides the terrific Troy Paiva shots a few posts previously) and this one (by Chris Crook) caught my eye. But wouldn't you know it, it has only a bit of color.

I like it nonetheless. We all have our biases and I have a soft spot for shots that emphasize complexity. [One of my goals is to take the definitive freight yard hub-bub shot!] This shot has all sort of industrial grid patterns, steam, lights, and tucked away in the middle just a bit of a splash of blue, and a switcher to boot! And it is at Mingo, my visit to which I still fondly remember, with my father reading the paper in the car while I wandered about, too young to drive there myself.

I'm not saying it is a great shot, but it is an interesting shot and I'll tuck it away, with its strengths and weaknesses (the composition is not that strong, I think, despite the grids) and ponder it as I search for that special shot of my own.

PS: Every so often I'm going to show an image that attracts my attention for idiosyncratic reasons, and present it without much text or justification, as here. Just another type of pix-musing to pop out into the world. :)

O. Winston Link: The Presence of the Train

In reexamining some of the iconic images of O. Winston Link, I am struck by a particular issue of rail photo composition that has been interesting me for some time, the relationship between the train and the rest of the image. Is there a relationship at all, are they connected in the composition?

Consider the first image of people playing in a river as a train roars by. Well, that is just it; the train roars by but the people do not notice. That is OK to my senses; the river connects the people and the bridge with the train passing over it. To some extent the scene holds together.


But what of the second scene, also of swimmers? In this case the swimming/ people part of the image occupies its own, fenced space, and the train is outside of it. More than just outside, separated by the fence and some foliage, and no one gives it any heed. Two parts of the scene stuck together, as if by happenstance. The train is not "of" the swimming scene, it is an appendage.


An exagger- ation? Well, how about the third scene, the famous drive-in photo? A cluster of cars watching a movie with an airplane. The train passing - does its chuffing drown out the sound inside the cars? Does anyone notice it go by? At least compositionally its lengthy plume helps bring added attention to it, pulling the eye away from the plane (or away from the engine?).



The fourth image, the gas station shot, I find the most striking of all. Look at the action in the shot! The train is huge, so huge that the shot cannot contain it, showing neither the nose nor the cab, much less the tender or train. And it seems to be feet away from the remainder of the scene. And yet, no one notices it go by. How extraordinary!

The attendant and the couple are both focused (intently?) on the delivery of gasoline to the car. Perhaps this is a greatly foreshadowed metaphor for how our society today perceived cars and trains, the former a vital force to be kept fueled, the latter easily ignored despite its great presence? A massive stretch, and I don't believe that is the intent; too early in history for that, I think, and Link was not know for that sort of social commentary. But the presence, or shall I say absence, of the train in the story of the image is, well, astounding!

The last image is a different sort of discon- nection, one of minor presence. The scene is the interior of a hardware store, and it just happens that there is a sizable steam engine outside the window, so large we can only see the number and parts of two drivers. It is literally outside the scene, peeking in, but actually it isn't, it is merely stopped outside, minding its own business, with no apparent connection to or interest in the people and goods inside. What is the connection between train and scene?

These images seem to combine train and scene by happenstance. With the exception of the first, there are no obvious reasons why a train should be present in any of the scenes, not by geography or transportation need. Their presence is accidental, or perhaps coincidental; they are in the scene but not so much a part of it.

Of course, many or most of Link's images are not composed in this way. But I was struck by the parallels here, particularly noticeable to me because several of these images I think of as being the "most iconic" of his work. The question of connection between train and environment is one I intend to return to with reference to contemporary images.

[NOTE: I have tried twice to reach the copyright holder, Link's son, to receive permission to use these images here. On the basis of those efforts and my reading of the doctrine of fair use (in particular the "for purposes such as criticism, comment" phrase, combined with the non-profit nature of this site) I conclude that my use of these images is lawful and appropriate.]