Please vote for a winner for Trackside with Trains.com Vol. 182, Night: http://trn.trains.com/Trackside/2012/04/Vol%20182%20Night.aspx.
We are featuring three reader submissions this week!
Also, let us know what you think of the photos.
Thanks and have a great week!
Need working link, please.
Link: ACTIVATE!
http://trn.trains.com/Trackside/2012/04/Vol%20182%20Night.aspx
Thanks, Zug. Had to vote for Jim’s NYC units. I love night photography because the light reveals the most of the picture. Here, the gray and white pick up and reflect the light in the middle of dark emphasizng both the light and the dark with a spotlight effect. Er, does that make sense? It make a good picture anyway. And look, at this point the voting is a straight and even 20% across the board! Should be that way this time.
I also edited OP post to have that link work as well… [tup]
Oh, MY!! If memory serves me right, I don’t recall ever having this much trouble picking the best shot, IMHO, of course! Good thing I have a few days, it’s gonna take me at least that long!!! Oh, man! This one’s SO tough!!
Some of the staged night photo shoot images where excellent but I have never found it that difficult to get a good night photo at a staged shoot where someone has made sure that good lighting was available, trains positioned just right and plenty of time was available. Digital technology has also made night photography much easier. The camera pretty much does all the work anymore with really limited input from the photographers. Not like the “old days” when you needed to use a cable shutter release, set your aperture and make guesstimates on the length of exposure or had to go and use a flash to light the subject up or use paint by light techniques. I had to vote for Hinsons image (not staged and using available light) but would have loved to have seen some older images entered from days when photographers made the decisions about night exposures or had to create the lighting in order to get a good night time exposure. Guess I am just become an “ole fart”.
I will commesurate with you Steve, but only up to a point. I guess it depends on how you evaluate the picture you are looking at. Your comments about staged and not staged as well as comparing modern digital to old time setup and test are right on. But, I have to often here, step back and look at the results and what is portrayed and how I intepret what I see. My choice is differnet from yours and I won’t for one second challenge that.
Alex got my vote, even though the side of the train could have used a little light. The overall color balance on the building plus the rainy reflections made it nearly perfect.
Actually, I would have voted for Keith Schmidt IF the headlight were on, which would have made the shot absolutely perfect. I thought James Byber’s shot was ok, but the position of the sign was totally distracting to me, and I kept being drawn to it instead of the crew.
I also kept wondering what Drew’s would have been like with a time exposure and the headlight streaking across the horizon.
oops…typo alert…make that a “cable MODEM”…not a cable model… Tom
First off, I’m very happy to see three reader submissions used this week. I hope that this continues in the future. This is a very positive change!
On to the photos - I agree with others, a hard choice this week. All are interesting and very good. I also agree with some who don’t like the staged night shoot photos quite as much. (Tho I’m probably just jealous, having never been able to attend one of these events.) As I said, all are very good, I went with the Tom Nanos pic, the black and white to me just seems to accentuate the feeling of “night”.
Don
I went with Tom Nanos’ photo. There’s something about black and white that adds an aura of mystery to a night shot. Using only the available light is what made this shot my choice.
After looking through them again, I chose NYC shot. It seemed to draw me in the most, with the crew being there, for one thing (although, I agree, that signpost is distracting.) Nice job this week, again IHMO.
Thanks for having this; it sure is fun BUT can we please go to no name labels on the photos?! This has been requested/suggested before, commented & ‘voted’ on by the readers who participated in a loose survey-type question, and is done when we pick shots for a calendar. After all, it is only fair to vote on shots for their merit and not by who took them! After the voting, then the photographer’s name could be available, along with the info of the shot. Or, it would still be a whole lot better than it is now, to even post the info of the shot but leave off the photographer’s name until after voting. Please consider doing this. Thank you.
I liked Keith’s shot the best. He was in the right place at the right time and did not hesitate. Sometimes, when taking pictures of trains, rare opportunites like this go by quick, and it’s now or never.I liked the way the lighting effects shrouded the steam in the picture.