Word Processor of another Era

Most of the train cars that you could wander through at the museum had some sort of a display set up in them. Some where very traditional, semi-informative item/picture with placard, others were extremely anachronistic (modern-day ball caps and toy electric trains), and others were simply decorated with items that might typically have been found aboard in the days the coach was operating. Those ones, by and large, were the best.

This shot was taken in the Royal Hudson coach car (the Royal Hudson itself was not available/on display), and I must say that I had a lot of fun processing it. This is the shot I was working on the other night that didn't come out the way I'd expected; I took another shot at it tonight and figured out what I was doing wrong, and I like this result quite a bit, certainly better than the two earlier versions.

I think it's fair to say, though, that this one is much more heavily Photoshopped than most of the other pictures that I post here. I imagine that Dennis, my fellow photographer on this trip, would call this an illustration, rather than a photo due to the amount of processing involved.

Read the post [+]

Hide the post [-]

Finally, a New Post!

Sorry for the extra long interval between posts. Ya, I know that I'm not that regular with the posts in the first place, but this time my computer was dead for almost 3 weeks so I couldn't process anything. I'd put off fixing it for most of that time as I was anticipating having to do a full Windows re-install and rebuild and that was just much more of a job than I wanted to tackle. I finally tried a boot-repair, and that seems to have solved most of the problems and took only one night. In the end I lost one of my six hard drives, but it was quite old and had nothing critical on it; I guess things could have been worse.

Anyway, last weekend I went up to Squamish with Dennis, a friend and fellow photographer from work whom I had been bugging to go out to shoot with for a very long time. We had a great day, spent the morning at the train museum and then in the afternoon we finally found "The Spit" were the kite surfers hang out (quite literally, as it turns out). I still haven't started working on any of the kite surfing shots yet, but have had a go at the best-of of the train museum pics. This shot was one of the first of the day, and I'm quite happy with it. Let me know what you think of it.

Read the post [+]

Hide the post [-]

Locked

I'm not sure how this will look on other monitors - it's one of those images that I just know is going to be immensely affected by all the little vagaries of other monitors; well, at least the cheap monitors at work...

This is actually the second version that I processed. Not that there was necessarily anything wrong with the first version, it just didn't have the dramatic oomph. Although I suppose that begs the question "Does this one have dramatic oomph?" If not, it's at least a step down the road toward learning how this style of image is created. Not sure that I could duplicate it is I had to, but it's a start.

Oh, in case you're wondering what it is, it's a Canadian Pacific Rail padlock on a track-switch. What caught my eye was the relatively rust-free lock body surrounded by (and embedded with) lots of rust. I don't think they actually run any trains on these tracks anymore, so one wonders why they'd need the lock, but there it was. Ideally, given the available light I should have taken a longer exposure but this was one of those times when I hadn't taken my tripod along as I didn't expect to need it.

[This shot was taken within a few feet of "Zero Four One" and "Sitting on a Siding".]

Read the post [+]

Hide the post [-]

Zero-Four-One

Wow. I kinda slacked off the posts again. The difference this time, is that I actually have some stuff I want to post; I just seem to have not gotten around to actually posting them.

This is a switching post for a train track siding near the cement plant, on the way home after that incursion. I actually took quite a few shots of it, trying to capture various aspects (like the spider webs, which are just visible in this shot) and decided I like this one the best.

One thing I'm getting a bit better about, is, well, not ignoring people around me, but not being as distracted by them or feeling self-conscious. Specially when there are small kids who ask their parents "what's that man taking pictures of?" when they don't understand why I'd want to stop and take pictures of a silly train switch.

I am a photographer. Hear my shutter click.

[Oh, wanted to mention that it was my nephew's 5th birthday this past weekend, which I attended and took lots of pictures. Mostly disappointing pictures - still have lots to learn about shutter speeds and use of flash indoors - not likely to end up here. Though you never know. Depends on my mood, and if I think I've managed to process anything into something suitable.]

Read the post [+]

Hide the post [-]

Sitting on a Siding

Well, the holidays are off and running... at this point it's 3½ days down, 41½ to go!

I still haven't made any big plans to fill up the time, haven't really been motivated to make any yet, given the weird weather we've been having; at the moment I'm waiting for the afternoon shower/lightening storm to start, though it was pretty nice this morning.

This was taken yesterday evening, somewhere between the Arthur Laing and Oak Street bridges.

Read the post [+]

Hide the post [-]