Revealing my Intent: Image 2 ":Locomotive Engine 4449"

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I had the intent to shoot a 70mph steam locomotive going through the area one morning. I arrived early and set up my camera and 70-200mm lens so I could capture enough light for fast shutter speed as it approached from a distance away, and to keep shooting as it very quickly flew by. These shots were strictly images, no video. The entire outing took just under an hour, while the entire shoot took less than 6 seconds. I had everything exactly as I wanted it. But.......

......what I discovered as I read the screen and viewed the result, were that the light while bright was a hazy bright and undersaturated the colors that I wanted to display in a printed image, while over saturating the whites to a point of blown out highlights. Now my work was cut out for me.

I worked on these images for a few days, then after not being able to achieve what I wanted, I decided I should try massaging the colors tones. This was a multi-step exercise and took a bunch of tries to end up with exactly what I wanted. In fact I liked it even better than just a straight out of the box standard photograph. After sepia-toning the ground and tracks, I added highlight and exposure to bribing to life the surrounding landscape, and moved on to the locomotive itself. The locomotive engine, not the entire boxcars following it, had to remain the focus and as I sampled many sets of adjustments, I finalized the colors with stainless, orange, black and blue as a reflective of the sky just above, even though the rest was cloudy bright.

Forcing the steam from the locomotive stack to take on a darker, moody appearance allowing for the engine to stand out above all else. This particular locomotive engine has been captured thousands of time, but I have not to date, been able to find it so creatively altered as to become a really special print for both those who are train enthusiasts, but for that special wall that screams our for something really dramatic and powerful.

The work it takes to get a ordinary photograph to this stage was for me, quite an effort, and I hope I have described it well enough for you to appreciate the effort.






Next in this Series Light from Beneath





















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