Good morning,
This week eight photographers are battling for the opportunity to be published in Trains magazine. View and vote for your favorite “oil train” image here:
http://trn.trains.com/photos-videos/trackside/2015/03/oil-trains
Good luck!
Drew Halverson
All but one are pretty much the same shot, just with different colored engines.
Not very creative this week.
The voting results of this ‘oil trains’ photo contest baffles me.
The photos by Michael Berry (#1) and Darryl Rule (#7) seemed to be the most theme-outstanding, where the eye was directed to the oil cars. But oddly, Matt Brozowski (#2) won! While his photo was probably the most striking, the oil cars were secondary and not prominent in his scene, thus making one wonder if this website’s staff that chose the nine photos understands the concept of ‘theme.’
I think more to the point is that the readers voting are picking a pretty picture whether it best fits the topic or not. If you notice, in other “Tracksides” any that have a steam locomotive tend to score high.
In this case perhaps the staff was constrained by the available submissions. Most railfan photographers do highlight the headend power. What type of train it might be is more or less irrelevant.
I agree with you. While a Matt’s is a fine picture of the approaching engines I voted for one that included the oil train as a strong component of the image.
John
Steam engines score high, and in-cab shots do well, too.
I don’t even know why they bother with a theme. Just have people submit any ol’ train shot every week.
I, too, have been frequently surprised as to which photos score high in the voting.
My understanding is that the selection of which photos to offer for voting is done on a random basis (as long as the image sort of fits the theme). They certainly do not choose the photos based on merit. As a result, some of the offers are fantastic photos and some of them are duds.