One of the 2020 photographic casualties for me was not being able to chase the #1225. Or ride the #1225. In 2019 we rode the excursion from Mt Pleasant to Cadillac. And the Polar Express Run. I know, how exciting can a 35 mph train ride be? Fun is in the eye of the beholder. And for the times not riding, I didn't get to chase. Train nerd. But it is sort of fun.
One of my favorite #1225 shots can be found here. What I like about the shot is if fills the screen. Really fills the screen. I can feel the vibrations, hear the familiar noise and smell the steam. On the list of permanent screen savers, top three for sure. Big, heavy metal.
Since the flow of new photographs has dried up, except for squirrels and small birds, I've retreated to 2019 for the most part to grab past memories.
And now for something a little different. On my last #1225 chase, the day was crisp and clear. Great light. Too many people, but I need to learn patience. The sun was directly behind me, if I remember correctly, so with great lighting comes shadows. To remove the shadows, I had to take the photos at an angle. No real big deal, but I think a straight shooting plane would have been better and a bit more sharper. But looking ford to this as a screen saver.
With the great sunny lighting came the very uneven light off the metal. Played all sorts of havoc with the metering. Knocked it down to EV -1 and that seems to calm everything down a bit. I bumped up the reds a bit in post, call it artistic license.
I like the diversity of the angles and the unevenness of the wires. I sacrificed some of the black of the metal to get some light in the center of image. In the original shot, that is a black hole. I bet the EV -1 had something to do with it. It's acceptable now, but I think with some (a lot of) either color manipulation or dual images and masking it could be much better. And since the February forecast is still COLD and the weather gopher said six more weeks of winter I may be able to find some time to 'learn' something new. I mean if it was a sky replacement, done tonight, right?
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