Category Archives: night photography

Nevada Northern Railway – Day 2 continued…

by in Digital darkroom, Nevada Northern Railway, night photography, Railroad, Scenery, Shooting in the snow, Steam locomotives | Leave a comment

Due to the extreme weather conditions all morning (described in my previous post), our workshop facilitators did a wonderful job of getting the shots but also caring about the comfort of the participants. We split the outside shooting into a couple of sessions, allowing us to get inside more frequently and stay warm.

One of the great elements of this particular workshop is the lighting. Steve Crise has been a photographer for many years (no, I won’t tell you how many so you don’t guess how old he is!), and is a master of setting up a lighting system. His classroom sessions on lighting are wonderful, but then we got to put that information into practice. Because of the weather, he devised some lighting schemes inside the Machine Shop and Engine House to teach us more. For these sessions, he has each participant put the light controller on their hot shoe and control the shot.

We had a couple of scenes to shoot. This is one of the NNRY employees in the Blacksmith Shop. There were two strobe lights on him, and one strobe inside the furnace. The furnace strobe had a gel to create the yellow color.

Of course, once I got my turn at the strobe lights, my attention turned to other areas.

In the Machine Shop, a fun composition of one of the walls.
This is the NNRY’s Rotary Snow Plow. The machinery is probably 10 feet in diameter. I bracketed exposures and then had some fun playing with different filters in post processing. This is a yellowed filter in Nik Silver Efex.

When the light begins to fade, we settle in for the evening session. Our facilitators got very creative for this year’s evening session. I call it, “Fun With Fire!”

We’re all in the Machine Shop, in total darkness. We hear Steve say, “3…2…1…open shutters!” We open our shutters and several strobes fire, lighting up NNRY worker Ben who is standing on the front of Locomotive 81 making lots of sparks. After a few seconds, the shutters close and we repeat the process.

With the number of participants, space was a little tight in the Machine Shop so I looked for different places to stand. For this shot, I stood on the stairs to mechanical equipment in the ceiling and got this shot looking down.
We stopped and allowed everyone to change their view every few minutes. For this shot, I went low and perpendicular to the locomotive.
From the front of the locomotive, and I mistimed my shutter and missed the strobe light. In some ways, I think it’s better than other images I made. Note the wet floor – not for safety, but for lighting effect.
In automotive photography, this is called a 3/4 view because the front of the vehicle is about a quarter of the total image. I timed the strobe well, as I got great light in the scene. For these shots, I tried several different settings. I settled in at ISO 250, f/7.1, 2.5 – 4 seconds of shutter speed.
For this shot, I stood at the top of the landing for the exterior door. One of the early shots on the night, I overexposed and clipped the center of the spark shower. Not fatal, as this is still a nice composition.

And so, a day of challenging conditions and much learning for me. Shooting in a driving snow storm, followed by strobes and fun with fire – new experiences all day.

A quick note about post processing. I always shoot in RAW format, which requires that all image files are processed on a computer before being able to share them. For the snow images, I still had to tone down highlights and bring out the shadows. The interiors just needed some tone adjustments and filters. The FWF images were lots of fun. Due to the strobe lighting in some (but not all) combined with the bright sparks, each image file had to be processed independently to bring out the strengths of every image. I also use filters from the DxO Nik Collection or Topaz Studio, and I used both – sometimes together – to make the image really pop.

One more cold day in Ely, but it wasn’t snowing! Until next time – enjoy! PHOTOROGR

Nevada Northern Railway Part 2…

by in Digital darkroom, Nevada Northern Railway, night photography, Scenery and tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The morning was chilly, but enthusiasm was high as we gathered for Day 1 of the Nevada Northern Railway Photography Workshop. I ate breakfast in the hotel, so I passed on the selection of donuts provided by the staff (my body was very happy with this choice). We got to know each other a little more as we shared images from past shoots. The group included accomplished photographers. Some had been to Ely before and had great images to share. One participant was from Nebraska, and was a regular contributor to the Union Pacific Railroad with his images of the steam locomotive 4014, the legendary Big Boy, recently restored and touring the country.

After our morning classroom session, we headed out into the rail yard. First stop was the Engine house, where I grabbed a few shots.

One of several images inside the Engine House. I used a softening filter to give this a more abstract look.

We spent much of the morning in the yard watching the locomotives move around the yard as they gave us photo opportunities and set up for tomorrow’s action.

The 40 powering through the yard. RIP Building behind and Coaling Tower on the left.

The 40 was our primary subject in the yard today. I tried this sepia-style filter and like the result.

The 40 approaching the ‘service station’ – the legs of the Water Tower and the dump chute of the Coaling Tower.

A popular shot among the instructors, this view of the 40 under full steam on the east side of the yard . In our final session, I was told this would make a great magazine cover.

A fun picture of the 40 framed by the base of the Coaling Tower. Great sky and the mountains in the background.

After lunch, we all enjoyed a class in lighting. I’ve never taken a lighting class before, so I really enjoyed the learning opportunity. The instructor pulled me out of the crowd and had me sit in the subject chair while he moved lights around and showed us different techniques. He gave me all the pictures he took. No, I won’t be sharing them.

A few more shots around the yard and some dinner, then we moved inside the Engine House for some strobe lighting shots. The staff set various scenes for us, we set our cameras and opened the shutters, the strobes popped and we had images. Here’s a sample of the evening’s activities.

The 40 in the foreground and the 93 in the back, with a sepia filter. Most of my night shots are black and white, since the black of the locomotives and lack of background lends itself to monochrome shooting.

Lots of steam and smoke, giving these images a surreal feel. Another participant shared his secret for enhancing the smoke and steam during processing – and it works!

The trick for enhancing the steam also works on the lights. In this image, it helped disguise that I had removed the ugly modern sodium vapor lights in the ceiling, maintaining the old time feel of the image.

I never imagined I could make images like this.

I returned to the hotel very satisfied with the day and almost 500 image files to process. Working around the coal fired locomotives is interesting. Safety First – as it says everywhere in the yard and on the front of the locomotives. I emptied a few cinders from my shoes and out of the hood on my jacket, and detected a slight odor of train in my clothes, but it was all worth it. Two more days of shooting and learning. Stay tuned and enjoy – PHOTOROGR

Night Photography Workshop…

by in Nevada State Railroad Museum, night photography and tagged , , , | 2 Comments

I participated in a Night Photography Workshop at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in mid-November. The workshop started after lunch with a safety briefing and introductions, and then the fun began.

The wonderful volunteers at the Museum had the McKeen car, the 25, and the Glenbrook all fired up and running around for us. I took advantage of the afternoon light to get a few of the Glenbrook.

As daylight faded to evening light, the actors arrived and the instructor set out the big lights. First up, the McKeen car at the Depot.

The sun was setting over the hills in the background and gave beautiful light.

We spent several hours in the cold evening with the locomotives at different locations around the Museum property. This is my favorite from the evening.

Set at the crossroads on the north side of the property, the Glenbrook and the 25 have a discussion over who has the right of way.

Just for fun, I put a black and white filter on the color image, then reduced the opacity on the b/w and the browns in the image came through. I like the effect.

One of the last venues for the evening was the turntable. I had to experiment with a little low light-long exposure work.

The rear of the Glenbrook is lit by headlights from a truck parked behind and to my left. The front is natural light with about a 30 second exposure. I’ll try to get the truck lights off the next time.

The volunteers were preparing to put the Glenbrook away for the night and they invited participants into the cab. This long exposure was one of my last images on the night.

The open fire box door complements the glow of the lantern for this warm image. The low light capabilities of the Canon EOS 6D Mark II are amazing.

This workshop was a great experience and I look forward to the next workshop at the Museum.

Prints are available – send me a message.

Enjoy – PHOTOROGR