Happy Monday!
Trackside with Trains Vol. 205: “Out of place” is now live to view and vote!
Eight photographers submitted images for the latest round of our biweekly photo competition.
View the selections and vote for your favorite, then return here to discuss Vol. 205!
Thanks,
Drew Halverson
Michael Harding’s airplane and railroad cars, hands down, is the most obvious out of place theme shot. Great pictures over all otherwise…but you have to know why each pic is out of place by looking at it without needing an explanation…railfans, and more to the point, parochial railfans at that, could understand one or more of the picture, but too many others can’t. Only the FED EX Plane is the most universal…I base on what the picture says and not the captions and explanations.
Bingo!
Yes, indeed! The plane looks out of place in a train picture (would that be a type E or type F coupler?), but you could say that freight cars like that look out of place at an airport, too.
The other one where something was obviously out of place was Tom Nanos’ wreck shot, but I’ve seen enough wrecks in my day that I’m a little averse to pictures of them.
As for the current leader (Alex Mayes’ shot of a CB&Q E5 on former CB&Q trackage that still has old CB&Q signals), it could be argued that everything in that shot was very nicely in place!
Both the “Q” train and the UP look like there “in place”.
Re the UP: since the Stein’ Horse of Horseshoe Curve, I haven’t seen an equine-ferro-equine composition as fortuitous and good—Stein’s rules.
Conjuring Stein, had he taken it, and surely he would (surely Shirley, you agree?) he would have proudly submitted the Brandon. It is a great picture.
Without the caption, the 727 from Fed Ex wins, but with it…the Oz Wiz curtain…opens…
The Elrond lit my fuse—lots of memorys from 1960 thru the 2000’s of running and firing right there, and friends and events, right there on that overpass. I know only minimal croppig differences could be made without eliminating the story and they wouldn’t be worth it cause the pic’ is highly valuable photo-journalism. Congratulations, Elrond.
Lit my fuse—ignited memories from mid '60 to late '63 (drafted, Viet Nam, returning to the SP, things were explosively different) but…only admiration for 99.8 percent of the people I worked with-and-for, for a 42 year spell.
The photo of the CB&Q E5A & “Train of the Goddesses” trainset on former CB&Q trackage, under a former CB&Q signal bridge seems to be more a case of “Out of time” rather than “out of place”… until one takes into account that, without the many hours of hard work by a determined, dedicated group of volunteers, the only “place” one could see that train would be in a display barn in Union, IL at the Illinois Railway Museum. 79 m.p.h. on the BNSF mainline to Quincy, with meal service included? Hats off to everyone at IRM!
Brandon’s photo did it for me. I really likes the crepuscular rays of the sun shining down on the near-vacant land. The stark, almost monochromatic image really struck me as unique. And the locomotive sure looks ‘out of place’ to me.
Indeed - That image could appear in a nice coffee table book entitled “The Golden Age of Streamliners,” captioned as having been taken ca 1950 and no one would know the difference.
But I don’t know Chicago, I don’t know CB&Q, so I don’t know that anything is out of place. The picture has to tell me that…in this case a BNSF warbonnet unit on the adjacent track could tell me that…but as is it is a CB&Q train flying along the CB&Q sometime in time…
I didn’t have any qualms about picking Alex Mayes’s photo of the prewar CB&Q streamliner. What makes it out of place is that it is out of time, and I, too, have to admire the work put into the trainset by the Illinois Rail Museum.
Elrond Lawrence’s photo of the NS locomotive in California got my attention as well, and I’m surprised it is not polling higher than it is. It’s the one photo in the set that doesn’t need text to explain why “out of place” is a fitting description.
To me, Scott’s and Elrond’s photos seem most “appropriate” for the category. The Mayes photo? Geograpiic location, trackage, signals, and equipment are all “at home”, (CB&Q) according to his description. A typical excursion photo runby shot! The only thing “Out Of Place” is his thinking that it is.
This trainset and the 1939-built E5A was not out of place at that location? This was the first trip this equipment had made over this line in over 40 years!
Alex Mayes
But Alex, you maybe right, however I didn’t know that by looking at the picture. It was a great picture of what it was and when it was. But us coastal boys couldn’t tell when the pic was taken or why it was out of place. If an interstate highway marker was in the pic, or a Lincoln Navigator or even a BNSF warbonnet orange locomotive, it would have told me that. Same goes for all the other pictures…I couldn’t tell what if anything was out of place because, for me, there was no reference point.
And that’s been my point right along - I shouldn’t have to read the caption to know that a picture is “out of place,” or whatever the theme is. In fact, I’d like to see the competition totally blind - no names, no explanations, nothing but the picture, at least until an individual votes.
Ya know, Tree…that ain’t a bad idea…
Henry6’s e-motion is hereby enthusiastically seconded, but in an attempt to further fine tune the selection process, try presenting the selections anonymously, without description or theme.
Categoriize the offerings as news photos or as pictures (artsy) and get the votes. A voter after action, could open up all the currently formatted stuff in its present form—theme, photographer, motive, details like…for the exclusive info’ for all voters.
That procedure might alleviate the conflict over applying the “theme” to “content” questions, and get a photo’s image quality to the fore.
No, the point is that if there is a theme, let the picture reflect it, not the caption. It is a semi contest for photos not as news but telling the story of the picture. Theme it, catagory it, art it, color it, black and white it, season it, whatever, just let the photograph say it.
I can see your point, but I, too, think there should be a theme - then let the photographers do their best to illustrate it.
If there is no theme, then we just get random railroad photographs. If a submitter discovers that the readers like 3/4 views of steam, then they will always submit a 3/4 view of steam.
If, on the other hand, the theme is, say, cabeese, then that 3/4 view of steam better include a caboose or the readers are going to wonder why it’s even in the competition.
As it is now, the submitter can include in his/her caption that the little speck down in the corner of the image is a caboose. And the readers who like 3/4 views of steam will vote for it - not because of the unique/arty/whatever view of a caboose it provides, but because there’s a steam engine in the picture.
It’s also necessary to let folks know the theme ahead of time so “outsiders” can participa
Say you have two photos and a target theme. Photo A fits the theme better that photo B. But photo B is obviously far better in terms of both the technical and artistic accomplishments of photography. Which photo wins?
Given the reduction in size to make an image usable on the web, it probably wouldn’t make a lot of difference in presentation if an image was shot with a 1.2 megapixel camera or a 16 megapixel camera. They’ll come out about the same on the web.
If there were no caption to accompany the pictures, the voters wouldn’t know if an image was shot with a pocket camera or the latest and greatest DSLR, so they wouldn’t be able to vote on that basis (“Obviously, the guy with the better camera took the better picture.”)
So I’m going with the photo that best speaks to the theme.