Trackside with Erik and Mike, Vol. 69

[Bergie]

I just posted the latest installment of Trackside with Erik and Mike in our new section within the Railroad Reference area of TrainsMag.com. 

Read Trackside with Erik and Mike Volume 69

Voting for Trackside with Erik and Mike now occures at the top of the Trackside with Erik and Mike section. Click here to vote.

Please add your comments regarding this week's photos here.

Thanks, Erik

[Modelcar]

...This week I must vote for Mike's coal train atmosphere. Lot's of coal train equipment included in the photo plus the action of the moving train.

In general, I like night photos but this one of Erick's seems to be too dark over all....

[cpprfld]

I too went with Mike's photo. While I appreciate the time and effort Erik put in to get the photograph, it is just to dark.

[PBenham]

This looks like I'm back in my role as the kiss of death voter. I like Erik's night shot, yes it could have used some photoshop work, but the atmosphere would get lost. Mike's shot? Too cluttered for my taste, which is well.

[squeeze]

Two good shots. Went with Eric's shot as I always have a soft spot for the night time photos. Mike's shot has lots of composition. Difficult decision this time around.

[CShaveRR]

The blue night sky in Erik's shot is appealing, but so is the railroad activity in Mike's shot.  He (Mike) wins again, in my book. 

I was in Cheyenne a week or so behind you, Mike.  Good food, lousy service at the brewery in the station.

[bnsfkline]

Well, I went with Mike's shot. Boy does that photo bring memories back to my Montana trip back in July (Wow, it seems like YEARS ago, when its actually been less than 1 year!) Thats the spot where I spotted my very first BNSF SD70ACe. Thats the main reason why I voted for his shot. Eriks shot is too dark, maybe when he was shooting it he should have adjusted the exposure by +0.5, this would have made the shot a whole lot better.

 Then again, I tend to shoot towards the sun when I want the shot.

Wheres the Antalope!

[NYC]

Mike's coal yard shot is a unique one.  Night shot was too dark.  My vote went with Mike's photo this week.   To both of you, you are winners.  Each week we get great railroading photographs from each of you.  Thanks.

[gemotor]

Solidly in the minority this time, I voted for Erik's night shot.  A tough call, as both photos have a lot of merit.  Why?  Well, for me, Mike's photo is what I call a "record shot".  I have a photo taken at Dalies, NM, with an eastbound GP60M, a westbound Dash8-40B, and a C30-7 waiting to come off the line from Albuquerque, all at the junction by the water tank.  Nice record shot, quaint, curious, interesting even if only for the circumstantial convergence of these three trains, but for all that, it's not particularly artistic.  I would love to have Mike's photo in my camera as well.  Erik's night photo is unique and more artistic what with that wonderful sky, the step lights on the Dash 9 and all.  Yep, another wedgie, but all the surrounding background elements make up for lack of creative imagination.  All those background elements just lead my eye from one to another.  Surely more could have been done with the central subject of this scene, though . . .

[dknelson]

With both shots you simply have to click to enlarge to grasp what is being portrayed here.  I like them both. 

Dave Nelson

[jrhambone]

Again, Gentlemen, two very interesting shots.  I admire the fortitude of one willing to brave the cold in the dark.  I also enjoy trying to get shots at night.  However the rail (and other) activity in the coal field gets my vote.  Too bad we can't split the ticket.

[gannbb1]

No vote this week!! Both shots are great! It's just they are so diverse in subject and setting they just cannot be compared. Your commentary added intrest to both shots and I enjoyed it, but only made the comparason more difficult.

 Keep up the good work!

 

Gannb

[Anonymous]

WOW!!! both shots were OUTSTANDING this week!  as much as I liked the colors in eriks shot, those blues purples & blacks combined make it a shot one would proudly display on any wall etc and take 1st place in the voting, I had to go with the coal train shot, so much to see.. foreground, mid-ground sides.. distance.. everywhere you look TRAINS!!! and lets face it, this IS about TRAINS!  I see very little coal trains here except for the once in a while coal train heading down along the pacific coast to the coal fired power plants.  SUPERB Shots both of you!

[mandelswamp]

Once I read Mike's comments about his photo - that it caputured 4 trains - I was more impressed.  However, I still felt that the two trains in the foreground were too close and distracting of the train in the mid-ground.  Meanwhile, that unusually sky in Erik's photo grabbed my attention right away.  So I voted for Erik's shot this time.

[miniwyo]

What Mike missed is, the not only did that storm shut down that highway, it shut down amlost EVERY highway in the state! Had to go for Mike's photo though, it was really interesting, and it shows the volume of coal hauled out of a Wyoming mine at any given point in time.      However, Next time any of you (forum member included) are going to be in this neck of the woods, you have an open invitation to meet up! 

[DadH]

I like night shots; and also find photos depicting the Lands' Destruction rather depressing.

Composition of both well done, but when you consider ALL the prior photo submissions you might see a developing pattern of Night Shots vs. Long Trains. Quien Sabe???

[ValorStorm]

Mike's photo is off the hook! Not just another "choo-choo train picture", it's exemplary photo-journalism. And I find it surprising that 39% (so far) give the night shot the edge.

[DS25]

 

Actually,  I'm dissapointed with just about all of Erik and Mike's photos.

Simply put, for these to be published photos through Trains Magazine,

I'd expect a little more quality.  Maybe a better camera or film or both.

Most of the pics have bad lighting and poor contrast. 

[StephenDx]

I liked both shots but went with the harder to produce shot. After seeing the support Eric, it would appear that you need some more support for a different shot. :-)

[pawbase]

Mike's shot gets my vote-that panorama is awesome!

 

[zardoz]

I really liked the 'brutality' of Mike's coal train shot.  Everything about it suggests raw power, tonnage, bleak landscape, and rugged conditions (in other words: RAILROADING).  My only criticism is I would have prefered that the image had less sky (boring gray filled with wires) and instead tilted down to capture more of the locomotive in the foreground. 

Erik's image was rich in color, but suffered from the illuminated junky foreground.  It was more 'artsy' than Mike's image.

Voted for Mike's.

[Bergie]

 

Actually,  I'm dissapointed with just about all of Erik and Mike's photos.

Simply put, for these to be published photos through Trains Magazine,

I'd expect a little more quality.  Maybe a better camera or film or both.

Most of the pics have bad lighting and poor contrast. 

Hello DS25,

Thanks for joining the converstation.

I encourage you to go back through the Trackside with Erik and Mike archive: http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=ss&id=14

Don't base your judgement on our column off our recent installments since the time you joined a few days ago. Since we do this column on our free time (in other words, this isn't part of our jobs at Kalmbach and we don't go out to shoot as a part of our job roles) and we do a new installment every other week, we definitely experience highs and lows. Especially this time of the year; we're just coming out of winter and into a wet spring. It's not always easy to come up with new material every other week that you're willing to let the world vote and comment on.

Also, these photos aren't intended for Trains magazine. This online column is more about sharing our experiences trackside and keeping our readers excited about getting out and shooting photos themselves. If we were concerned about sharing only the level of photos that you'd expect within the pages of Trains magazine within Trackside with Erik and Mike, we'd probably only do the column once per month because we'd be more stringent with what we'd share. But that's not the case.

Again, that's for joining the site and participating in the conversation.

Take care, Erik

[Rocket Man]

Both photos took effort to pull off. Looking at the thumbnails, Erik's instantly got my attention, and Mike's just looked bland. After opening them up and enlarging them I had a greater appreciation for Mike's photo. I do however think that Mike's photo was trying to summarize the whole Powder River Basin in one shot. Don't get me wrong, photos that tell a story are usually fantastic. I just think there were too many things beyond Mike's control that kept the photo from living to its full potential. The lighting was not particularly great. There seemed to be a lot of haze from dust, etc. Even with the photo enlarged the train and other features in the background were just too far away too have and appreciation for and were hard to see. Because there was a lack of vibrant color, I wonder if the photo would have been better served using black and white? B&W might still portray the bleakness of the landscape, accentuate the coal, the industrial feeling of the photo and the detail in the locomotives.

Another quality installment Mike and Erik!

[IRONROOSTER]

First of all, I like both of these photos.  While Erik's shot is certainly more artistic, I voted for Mike's coal train.  For me it tells more of a story looking over one engine at the approaching coal train on the triple track.

Enjoy

Paul 

[al-in-chgo]

(long-winded, as usual     )

At first, it looked as though the two men's photos are literally as different as night and day.  But in a factual way, the visual contents do share at least one locomotive and one coal car; and either picture means "coal train" as a result.   

With a toughie like this, I usually try to find a balance between pragmatism/usefuless on one hand and quality-of-composition/esthetics (in the sense of quality-of-art) on the other.  Bergie's is the more beautiful in terms of classic norms of composition.  Mike's photo breaks all the rules--overloaded foreground, the visual contents of the two nearest trains "bleed" awkwardly (or go beyond the frame, if you will); and the fourth engine of the far-background Beaner is visible to me only as a red hyphen--even under LCD magnification.  Speaking only for myself, I'm not sure I would want to make issue of the fourth train--unless the photo were blown-up and physically printed to almost a museum-display size or perhaps digitally enhanced just a bit. 

Both pictures are refreshingly different from the much more common daylight long-train-seen-from-bridge or train-rounding-curve type of shots.  Happily, "posed" or posed-appearing night cab shots are becoming more common in the era of high-numbered ISO equivalent from the better digital cameras.  (Don't you wish Winston Link were still around to participate in the digital revolution?)  Both photos required patience and both have a successful "semi-improv" effort and quality to them--perhaps Mike's more than Bergie's.    Bergie's shot is beautiful as a portrait; Mike's is definitely unseemly  --  if photos could talk, this one seems to be dithering over whether it is a portrait or a landscape (bearing in mind that the intentions and uses of "portrait" and "landscape" as terms of art far, far predate the modern metaphor of word processing as to whether the 8.5" x 11" or A4 paper gets worked on "sideways" or not).   

Even though it has composition bordering on shocking, Mike's submission has the virtue of the high-impact that goes along.  Mike broke the guidelines or rules and got away with it IMHO.  I fully agree with the prior reviewer who used a brutalist metaphor to describe its tone.  (BTW "brutalist" or 'brutalism" have only fairly recently emerged as art or architectural descriptions of style.) 

Looking at utility or usefulness, Mike's shot has a lot more to say; it is more dynamic.  Would that BNSF or AAR would get similarly arresting photos like Mike's out in front of the public.  I share the view of fanners who say that the connection of coal + unit train + power plant = new homes, better air-conditioning, the total electrified American life, is something that must be established and maintained.  Both shots are very good in their own way. Every picture tells a story, and I am breaking with my usual conservatism to vote for Powder River and Mike. - a.s.

 

[al-in-chgo]

(long-winded, as usual     )

At first, it looked as though the two men's photos are literally as different as night and day.  But in a factual way, the visual contents do share at least one locomotive and one coal car; and either picture means "coal train" as a result.   

With a toughie like this, I usually try to find a balance between pragmatism/usefuless on one hand and quality-of-composition/esthetics (in the sense of quality-of-art) on the other.  Bergie's is the more beautiful in terms of classic norms of composition.  Mike's photo breaks all the rules--overloaded foreground, the visual contents of the two nearest trains "bleed" awkwardly (or go beyond the frame, if you will); and the fourth engine of the far-background Beaner is visible to me only as a red hyphen--even under LCD magnification.  Speaking only for myself, I'm not sure I would want to make issue of the fourth train--unless the photo were blown-up and physically printed to almost a museum-display size or perhaps digitally enhanced just a bit. 

Both pictures are refreshingly different from the much more common daylight long-train-seen-from-bridge or train-rounding-curve type of shots.  Happily, "posed" or posed-appearing night cab shots are becoming more common in the era of high-numbered ISO equivalent from the better digital cameras.  (Don't you wish Winston Link were still around to participate in the digital revolution?)  Both photos required patience and both have a successful "semi-improv" effort and quality to them--perhaps Mike's more than Bergie's.    Bergie's shot is beautiful as a portrait; Mike's is definitely unseemly  --  if photos could talk, this one seems to be dithering over whether it is a portrait or a landscape (bearing in mind that the intentions and uses of "portrait" and "landscape" as terms of art far, far predate the modern metaphor of word processing as to whether the 8.5" x 11" or A4 paper gets worked on "sideways" or not).   

Even though it has composition bordering on shocking, Mike's submission has the virtue of the high-impact that goes along.  Mike broke the guidelines or rules and got away with it IMHO.  I fully agree with the prior reviewer who used a brutalist metaphor to describe its tone.  (BTW "brutalist" or 'brutalism" have only fairly recently emerged as art or architectural descriptions of style.) 

Looking at utility or usefulness, Mike's shot has a lot more to say; it is more dynamic.  Would that BNSF or AAR would get similarly arresting photos like Mike's out in front of the public.  I share the view of fanners who say that the connection of coal + unit train + power plant = new homes, better air-conditioning, the total electrified American life, is something that must be established and maintained.  Both shots are very good in their own way. Every picture tells a story, and I am breaking with my usual conservatism to vote for Powder River and Mike. - a.s.

 

[mikeyuhas]

 

Even though it has composition bordering on shocking, Mike's submission has the virtue of the high-impact that goes along.  Mike broke the guidelines or rules and got away with it IMHO.  I fully agree with the prior reviewer who used a brutalist metaphor to describe its tone.  (BTW "brutalist" or 'brutalism" have only fairly recently emerged as art or architectural descriptions of style.)

Thanks, Al. 

Yes, there were a few things that needed to go right to "make" this photo... not the least of which was the gentle breeze blowing from the left to keep the heat waves from the idling DPU from disturbing the image of the locomotive of the above oncoming train. Trust me, that happened on several of the shots in this series!

 

[spokyone]

I was going to pass on Erik's pic until I read the text. I have tried to get a night shot at that location. Mine just do not get r done. Thanks Eric.

[espeefoamer]

As usual,two great shots to choose from. At first Erik's night shot appeared too dark.But as I looked at it, I started to notice things like the unusual sky and the distant city lights at the right of the photo.Mike's Powder River photo struck me as awsome.The foreground trains seemed to set the mood for the background with the distant trains. The dragline equipment seemed to add to the photo.I voted for mike's shot. It made me want to pack up my car and head for Wyoming for a week of railfanning the Powder River area!

[Chris Owens]

Good Job Erik!!!

Nice