Workin' the line on a rainy day

Oo, I like how it's framed through the window of the door, right? Brings back memories of riding the train as a young girl. Nice!

Thanks! This was just one of those grab shots while riding along with the crew.

 

- Randy

I also like how the window frames the scene. I would like a more dramatic sky and a person on the railing would add human interest to the composition. If you get another chance, I hope you take a similar picture in the yard or at a stop.

Jason,

 

Yeah, I wasn't happy about the sky either at first, but the camera I was using was digital, so unless I sacrificed the lower tonal values I couldn't get any detail in the sky. There are clouds, but they are mostly lost due to the limited tonal range of the equipment. This is one that I'd like to get back to sometime and shoot with color negative film for a better range of values, but the situation was somewhat special and I don't know if I could wrangle another ride like this again or not. Thanks for taking time to let me know what you thought!

 

- Randy

Hi Randall,

 

I really enjoy this photo. I use the 'blown out sky' look myself to convey the immediacy of the situation, heat, emotional stress, etc. The effect can be gotten without blowing out the sky, too !

I checked your photo and sadly enough, the sky is all 255's. That means you can't recover any detail, but that's okay, the effect works anyway for that 'hard' look.

You can create the same effect while not blowing out the shot. Try the same setup in the back yard (no need to rent a loco ride for this) and bracket the shot down a stop at a time. You'll see that the same 'stressed' look can be gotten while retaining a certain amount of detail. The frame will lose detail, but it's just that, a frame. The eye isn't interested in it. The eye DOES interpret a bright, impsoing sky as hot, sweaty, stressful, etc.

Keep in mind that you don't WANT a whole lot of detail in the sky, or the photo will become "pretty", and the whole appeal will be sacrificed. It's not a wedding photo, it's not supposed to be.

Hey, that gives me an idea. Try blowing out the sky on some 'mock' wedding photos (use the kids in the back yard for this) and see what happens.

I hope this helps you with your craft.

 

Best regards,

 

Bill P.

 

 

 

Thanks William. I just snapped this one while doing a ride-along in the cab - kind of a grab shot really, in the middle of some great conversation with the other fellows running the train. I was using a very basic digital camera rather than my usual equipment, but the effect worked out the way I wanted it to overall. Like you said, too much detail in the sky would pull the viewers eye up out of the important part of the scene, so I'm glad it burned out - it didn't have anything to do with the idea I wanted to present, which was the view I enjoyed for a few hours that afternoon in the cab with a couple of old-hand engineers. At first I hoped to retain the slightest detail in the sky, but the medium I had at hand at the time couldn't handle the tonal value range. Looking back on this old shot, I can now say that the only thing that I would have changed would be to have held a polarizing filter in front of the lens to cut out the window reflections...

 

- Randy