rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I've been kind of busy the past ten days.

Three years ago, the job our older daughter got out of grad school was in San Diego - she hated it {wanted to live some place "where they have weather"} - so we were all glad when she recently landed a position back here in Indiana. The downside was that she had very limited time to move; since I'm basically retired now, I had already agreed to help her move if the occasion arose, so on Nov 10th I rode the South Shore { see http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-416539-1.html } to Chicago, walked across the Loop to Union Station, rode Amtrak's "Southwest Chief" to Los Angeles, rode an Amtrak "Surfliner" to San Diego, and then rode a local trolley to within half a mile of her apartment.

After one last day to prepare for the movers, they came, and we spent the rest of that, my second day in Calif, cleaning her apartment. Since she needed to be in Indiana, and she knew that each day of travel would be tough on her two tabbies, we then drove her Prius back to Indiana in three daze {basically eleven hour daze}.

Knowing how small her Prius is, and how much she had to carry {including the tabbies}, and wanting to be very mobile on my trip out, I packed very very light - basically carrying "everything" in a standard-sized backpack - but I did also bring a camera with me, but again to save space and weight, I brought my Pentax MILC Q-7 kit in its messenger bag, the entire kit being smaller and lighter than my K-30 body alone.

Frankly, there were two high points in all of this, spending time with our daughter, and riding the "Southwest Chief", which provided several unique photographic opportunities. For one thing, the conductor occasionally announced a "smoking and fresh air" break {yeah, I know that sounds like an oxymoron}, when passengers were allowed off the train for a short well-defined time, and smokers had to clump together on the far edge of the defined area. It occurred to me that this might provide a street photography type opportunity, so one evening I got off with them and stood just off to the side. The lighting conditions, only harsh sodium-vapor lights providing illumination, were kind of tough on my small-sensored Q-7; I haven't decided what, if anything, I want to do with these images, let alone do it in the two days since we got back, but I thought I would post the first and last images from that group and see how people here react to them

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Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

The light establishes the time and the setting for me. I wouldn't want to see that changed. I also like that you included a bit of the lamp in #1.

As I just mentioned to NJFrank in his newest FYC topic, street and people are close to my least favorite subjects/genres for shooting or viewing, which perhaps gives me a different perspective. Whether it's helpful to you or not, is another matter

But my first impression is I want to know what the people are looking at beyond the fence. What is so interesting out there? Other than that, there really isn't anything to hold my attention.

It does sound as though you had quite an adventurous, exhausting week, though ultimately joyful in that your daughter will be nearby. Rest up now!

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Yeah, I guess I was more interested in the train we'd all come off than in the nothing they were looking at; "the rest of the world" is out there, but nothing much was happening at the time. When you ride a train for an extended period of time, it almost becomes its own world; we are observers of your world, and basically apart from it -I'm not sure why so many of them seem to be looking in that direction, because other than a few passing automobiles, it was a still life of sorts; perhaps they were just continuing what they had been doing a few minutes ago {and would be doing again in just a few minutes}. I was glad to be able to switch my attention, but I wasn't really one of them.

Incidentally, until the last dozen years ago, I wasn't very interested in photographing people either; I would do it on occasion, when the crowd was the obvious story, but otherwise people were just things in the way of more interesting things.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

I recall some of FYC's earlier conversations and topics regarding what to do about people in the way Interesting and enjoyable!

Frank2013 Loc: San Antonio, TX. & Milwaukee, WI.

I think you've one enough...the images speak for themselves.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

You have captured the reality of those-who-ride-trains-at-night. As you often do with us here, you use them to illustrate rather than tell a story, and I always enjoy your approach that is rather unique here and part of your own style. And yes, the feeling of what it's like to stand out there on the break time beside the track comes through.

Still, for me there is something a bit special about that first one that is more than that - the distinctive sodium vapor lights being part of it, but still more - the perfect leading lines coming up out of the left corner and headed towards an invisible vanishing point out there in the darkness, the perfect focus on the Gallup NM sign with the people slightly OOF, the cowboy hat, the bisecting shadows (especially of the hatted guy), the half-hidden child. I think this one is a pretty wonderful and timeless street photo as a stand alone. Larry McMurtry-style.

Billyspad Loc: The Philippines

Wonderful light and a pleasing well thought out composition but basically the shots say very little. Without your excellent narrative we would have no idea these folks were passengers on a train or just some folks hanging out near a fence. Maybe they will work for some but my imagination does not stretch that far.

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Like the light in both. The cowboy, and especially his weird shadow, and the short-sighted lady studying chain link fencing, make no1 very amusing! For no2, I'd crop hard to the people boarding and those lovely reflections along the train.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I kind of wish in retrospect that I had taken a picture the other way - from the train towards the fence; at the time, I didn't think of it because I was more interested in the train connection, but that, if anything, might have addressed Linda's "issues".

Can you think of something, anything, I could have done when taking the pictures, or I could do now in PP, that would address your "issues"?

ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

Having recently nurtured an interest in street photography, I know that it can be intimidating to stand next to someone and pull out your camera and start shooting. I notice that you were very close to these folks and that give the shots an immediacy that I can appreciate. The lighting is also fine because that is what you saw and that is what you captured. I think they are both good photos and I applaud your efforts.
Erich

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Thank you for the encouragement. Actually, I had three advantages:

(1) because of the darkness, they may have been slightly less aware of what I was doing.

(2) my Q-7 is yellow, so it looks more like a toy than like a serious camera; that was part of my reason for getting it - I have often said that some of the pictures I take are like street photography in that I don't want my camera to change the scene, and so I got a camera that most people won't take seriously.

(3) the Q-7 has a leaf shutter, rather than a focal-plane shutter, so it makes a very quiet "swish" when I take a picture - much less intimidating.

ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

Most of the time when I do street photography I use a Yashica twin lens reflex. It also has a leaf shutter and is practically silent. It has the added advantage that you shoot from the waist and look down at the ground glass finder. Most people, if they do recognize it as a camera, think that I'm fiddling with it and not composing a shot. Of course it is old and unusual and that can attract attention. I've actually taken several pictures where the people came up to talk to me about the camera because it looks strange, and , while we are talking, I'll blast off a shot or two. Sneaky.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

A very good approach. My brother has an old Canon digital camera, not much beyond a point-and-shoot, with an articulating screen that he uses exactly the same way.

NJFrank Loc: New Jersey

I am by no means a street photographer. So with that thought in mind take what I am saying with a big grain of salt. What I see are people just standing around with no interaction with each other. I would have liked to see more faces even if they all had a blank expression. They appear to just be "killing" time until they resumed whatever they were doing. To me there was nothing to hold my interest in these shots. Not to sound hearse and please do not take it that way, but you could have substituted cattle in a pen instead of people. With your back story I realize you were under the gun time wise to get some shots
To me this is not one of your better shots.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

After thinking about this, I've come to the conclusion that much of what you say is true ... but I'm not sure that is unexpected, or even bad. These pictures were taken at a stop roughly 29 hours from the train's beginning at Chicago; some of the people in this group had been on the train for the entire trip thus far, and all were probably from the coach cars {there was a 150+ foot space from the coaches to the sleepers}. There was an eight hour "quiet time" during which those of us in the coaches were allegedly sleeping, but I'm guessing that all of us were doing an excellent job of imitating zombies by this point; perhaps most in this group had ventured out into the coldness of the evening because a nicotine fix was more important than comfort to them, so these pictures could be analogous to a picture of a hobo for whom tomorrow has no more promise than yesterday did. Conceptually, these pictures had promise ... but promise doesn't always translate into a hit.