Papparazzi's railfan thread

**Papparazzi** · 04-13-2011, 12:00 AM

I do enough of these so I figured I'd make a thread for them.

I just happened to be in the right place at the right time on this one I tell ya. That place was Grant. I was on my way home from studying at a friend's house until like 3am, I went over a crossing and saw the tell-tale flashing red light of the end of a train in the distance in Micco. I followed it south on a whim and caught it crawling into a siding.

I figured, well I got all my gear with me, and my tripod, so let's do some night exposures. what I didn't realize is they had stopped for a crew change. usually when I catch a crew change in the day it's with a van or a car. apparently at night they use trains. i'm only familiar with their day schedule at night I have no idea what happens. I was about to call it a night when a northbound approached and I judged from the speed and rate of approach I could do a time lapse. they pulled up cab to cab and well, yeah it was a long night. I even got the engineer of the waiting train in the foreground to momentarily light up the side of the other train for the camera with his brights and ditch lights. these guys are pretty much gamers for the camera, all of them.

anyway, here's a couple from that night. I may upload these, just a basic process, changing sliders in Photoshop Lightroom.

My thumb slipped on the shutter release on this one there is a timelapse from the corner to the beginning of the light in this image I'm going to load them into CS5 and see if I can merge them or something. One thing I love about the 5D is the bulb mode on it I can do multiple long exposures at a time, and while one is processing I can shoot another. couldn't do that with my rebel.

**The Editor** · 04-13-2011, 12:05 AM

I dig the last two. The term "railfan" seems like a form of sexual fetish to me.

**Papparazzi** · 04-13-2011, 12:18 AM

it's what we are known as in the railroad industry. most of the guys behind the wheel of those things like us and the companies who own them love us because we're free advertising lol.

i guess i could be considered a railfan I take pictures of all sorts of things but I can't think of anything that doesn't belong in the gutter I've shot at 5am.