Is TRAINS going to change its name to “Zero Photos Rail Magazine”?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Inspired by Brian Schmidt’s “Railroad photography: Shooting for publication” very recent blog, it must be said that TRAINS current photo submission guidelines policy strikes this forum contributor as doomed. Who in their right mind would submit a screwed up photo? But, yet, that is what TRAINS wants, unaltered RAW ones. Is the famed rail photographer Richard Steinheimer now turning over in his grave?

Working against TRAINS Magazine is a disjointed organization! Yes, disjointed, where the right hand doesn’t seem to know what the left is doing. Contradictory instructions for submissions and inquiry email addresses that don’t work are the sure signs of an impending magazine name change to “Zero Photos Rail Magazine.”

It is unknown if a new publisher is needed, or if someone’s head needs to be chopped off, but something needs to be done at Kalmbach, as incompetence invariably leads to oblivion. PLEASE, PLEASE DO SOMETHING, KALMBACH! You are acting like Amtrak, a severely strangled organization!

2

Already the “Photo of the Day” feature could be renamed “Photo of the Week”, or perhaps “Photo of the whenever we get around to it”.

Since 2/18, there have been only 3 photos: Mac in the mist is repeated 8 times; Crossroads is repeated 7 times; and Local hero has been repeted 9 times (so far).

And somewhat related, it seemed to me that the April 2018 issue had a smaller “Gallery” section, as well as a smaller “Ask Trains” feature.

3

Ouch!! Before you go to those extremes maybe contact the magazine directly and get clarification…

4

Really? What are you going to ask - “is your magazine going down the tubes like most others?”.

5

I believe this has been addressed before - the reason for wanting the RAW file is so the image can be tweaked for publication. I would submit that one should send both the “finished” image and the RAW file so they can see what you intended for the image before making any adjustments to accomodate the printing process.

This would be very important if you cropped or adjusted the image to gain a certain effect.

6

Good lord…

7

NO, asking if the magazine is going down the tubes would be rude and frankly not a useful question. You might write to them with specific concerns. Ask why photos are repeated so often. Ask them what are the most common reasons photos are rejected. Ask why yours were rejected. Ask them specific things they can answer.

Would you call a restaurant and ask why they are so awful? What could they say if you did? If you called to say that every time you go there the potatoes come out cold, or the meat is never seasoned, or the waiter is always rude, or you wish the bathrooms were cleaner, those would be answerable and helpful.

So extend the same courtesy to Kalmbach.

8

I’ll bet you I could go out and buy a camera at Best Buy tonight, take some rail pictures over the weekend and get at least one of them published in Trains Magazine without even reading the guidelines.

This thread has too much drama.

9

While I admire the photographs of Richard Steinheimer and Ansel Adams, and can recognise their work often without reading a caption, sometimes this style of photography isn’t what is needed for a magazine.

Dr Louis A. Marre once said to me that after the end of steam, Steinhiemer never took a photo on the same side of the train as the the sunlight. Look at his photos accompanying the 1973 (or so) article on Cajon Pass and an earlier one on Donner Pass (from which I recall the black outline of a PA-1 against a mountain as the opening photo). There is no question that Steinhiemer was an artist, and DP Morgan was happy to run those photos.

But these were in feature articles that utilised Steinheimer’s abilities to illustrate specific areas of pictorial interest. They didn’t use the black outline of an SP PA-1 to report developments in passenger trains on the Overland Route, for example.

Most of the photos that Trains need are straight clear images of everyday operation to illustrate news and regular articles. If they have some flair, they are more ikely to be used.

I myself am stuck in the film era, although I have taken digital photos since mid 2003. Generally, I work on the theory that if the JPEG out of the camera looks really good, you don’t need to adjust it, and if it isn’t, you keep it in case the subject becomes important, and let a publisher enhance it if it deserves the attention. We did that with a particular Track Machine, (a Loram grinder) which became an item of interest.

I feel that if around half of my photos look able to be published out of the camera, I’ve had a good day. I try very hard to frame the subject correctly in the camera to reduce the need for cropping, and use a good quality zoom lens to get the framing right first time.

I use white balance presets to get the colour right (or nearly so) on overcast days, again avoiding the need to adjust the colour in post processing.

I grew up taking colour slides,

10

To all:

Forum contributor tree68 perhaps posted a most sensible reply, about sending how one requests the photo be cropped and also a RAW image. He is to be commended for it. But, do submission instructions say that?

Many have suggested contacting Kalmbach and inquiring about one’s concerns and asking questions. Imagine if a thousand subscribers and / or readers did that? Wouldn’t that cost Kalmbach a whole bunch of money, to the point of them having to raise the cover price and subscription rates? It would seem a one place, one stop instruction page that covered everything would be better, and be of a non-contradictory nature, and updatable. Now that would be sensible, and the cheapest thing to do.

A friend’s photo reproduced by permission, of BNSF trains near Frost, CA

As it is, Kalmbach gives the definite impression they don’t want photo submissions, or that they don’t know how to deal with the volume of contributions, and believe confusion is the way to go. At least that is my impression. But people like plain, informative instructions that are true instructions, and those people are apt to do as the instructions say. And, where people usually don’t do what they are instructed, that is a place to point that out! But, instructions that give erroneous links smacks of incompetence, and an organization in disarra

11

I too posted just after Zardoz in the blog…

This was my take:

What Trains staff have to do is to optimise the photo for printing on paper, which many of the contributors would not have considered. How many of us here have printed a photo prior to submitting it for publication, to see whether it looks as good on paper as it does on screen? And even then, the printer we use might not reproduce the photo the way the presses at Trains Magazine do.

What Brian Schmidt is saying is not to reduce the options available to the Trains production staff by editing the photo before submission. Even Ansel Adams took the size of display into account in deciding how to process the print. He probably took advice from the printers in selecting photos for publication. I have a couple of his books.

Let the Trains production staff take account of “God’s mistakes”, even those in areas with which a photographer would be unfamiliar.

Peter

12

It always makes me smile when someone hides behing the “buisness world” when saying something overdramatic and ridiculous.

13

I have to strongly side with the magazine on this one. What they want, and what we read the magazine for is the subject matter…“trains”. I really have no interest for whatever “filter lab” effects some monkey can cook up banging away at a keyboard.

Way too much altered reality is being passed off as “photography” at enthusiast sites across the spectrum, from nature to trains to automobiles, etc.

If someone really needs a pat on the back for being able to figure out how to install and operate shrinkwrap software, let them go to a computer hobbyist site and petition their peers there.[N]

14

To follow on with what KP said - perhaps a concise guide to photo submission would be useful. I’ve never seen it requested to send both the RAW and JPG in - that simply occurred to me as applicable if you’ve done substantial cropping or post-processing that you wish to convey to the editors.

You might not be pleased if the image printed did not convey the same impression that you intended.

Witness - the story of the photo lab people who went to great lengths to “fix” the print of a film image that included a green dog. Had to be an exposure problem, right? The dog came out an improbable tan, and the photographer was miffed because she wanted to show off the green dye job she’d done on the dog…

Anyhow…

An opinion - virtually everyone today carries a camera that has higher resolution than my digital Rebel, in the form of their cell phone. Imagine if everyone who just took the “photo of the decade” (sarcasm intended) on their cell phone sent it in for consideration. That would be a lot of pictures to wade through for an image that might be great in content but might not be savable for publication.

By asking for the RAW file, perhaps this helps keep such submissions to a minimum. If you are seriously considering submitting a photo for publication, you’re going to set your DSLR for RAW or RAW+JPG so you have the file.

15

It might do the OP some good if he shot about a half dozen rolls of film instead of digital for a change. Shooting film teaches discipline and forces you to compose your shot in advance. I know that my pictures will never get published (not an issue for me) but I do know that I am better than what I was forty years ago when I first started with an Argus C-3.

16

If it helps, this is part of the photographer guidelines published on the website. Please note that it states JPEGs can be submitted, but states that they prefer RAW files. It doesn’t say you can’t submit a jpeg. Bold and underline is mine, not theirs.

'We rely heavily on reader-submitted digital images, provided they are of sufficient resolution for magazine reproduction.

'You may upload your digital images to www.contribute.kalmbach.com. Please choose “Trains” and provide caption data in the comment field. You will receive an email message indicating that your images were successfully uploaded. Digital image submissions may be archived for future use. Please keep this in mind when submitting to multiple publications.

'If submitting news photos, please send them as soon as possible after the event. If you are submitting

17

Zardoz,

We are currently working on issues that preclude us from managing our “Photo of the Day” feature appropriately. Believe me, we are frustrated, too. But I am so glad you enjoy that feature!

As for the smaller April “Gallery,” that is in direct correlation to the fact that I needed an extra two pages for “In My Own Words.” I found some cool photos of the B&H in the library that hadn’t seen the light of day. I felt they should. This decision also squeezed “Ask Trains.” Again, I am happy to see that you enjoy those sections. I hope you can understand our decision.

18

Shooting film will also lead to a drastic thinning of the wallet.

I’ve just been going through my slide collection (of 30+ years), and I am amazed at what a pain they are. Fragile, bulky, and subject to fading–what’s to like? A decent digital camera will take images of sufficient resolution (12+ megapixels, as Trains asks for) to be used in a magazine.

However, I feel that raw photos generally lack any sort of “pop” compared to good slides (Fugi Provia 100). However, the ability to digitally remove unwanted clutter from a photo (i.e. garbage and debris littering the ROW) is a definite plus.

Anyway, from some of the images I’ve seen in the “Photo of the day” feature, their criteria for quality images is questionable. Perhaps the images are ‘directly from the camera’, but many of them are, well, rather boring and uninspiring.

If only Ansel Adams had taken railroad photos…

19

Angela,

Thanks for the response and the expanation.

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Amature night with real people who have some real flaws that make it real authentic. Karaoke Night is loved because its real. Same with art.