Night Train
Trains are completely divorced from human scale and human time and run indifferent to both and while they are happy to operate at night, most photographers are not. I took a few photographs of a parked train at night and knew if I was going to take more, I'd have to be prepared to freeze trains in place as they work. After a few failed attempts learning out how to frame a yet-to-exsist subject that you can't see even when it shows up (did I mention its dark?), I started getting good results.
Now that I've got the process down, I'll be out searching for locations in Eastern New York and New England, setting up and synchronizing the strobes and capturing images of railroads while everyone else is asleep.
Follow along here, as I take more photos of trains at night
Watervliet, NY. I'd just finished up with my homework and went out for a bike ride on an unseasonably warm night in December '10. A Canadian Pacific work train was sitting on the Colonie Main while the crew re-fueled on coffee at the Stewarts shop. I took a couple hand-held shots with available light but knew I wasn't going to get many opportunities to photograph trains standing still in the middle of the night.
Troy, NY. I heard the Sunday train pulling in as I was headed out with the dog and grabbed my camera and a single flash on my way out the door. The crew had already dropped off its delivery of a single grain car and leaving with an empty in return. I noticed there was a car sitting at the far end of the passing track and the dog and I took off running after the train, thinking they might stop to pick it up. We caught up at Polk St, where to our surprise, they were adding a caboose to the end of their once car train.
Fort Edward, NY. Sunday evenings are busy at the station with two Amtrak trains and the chance of a freight waiting in the yard. The show starts early and darkness is only guaranteed in the winter - the four strobes and I had to put up with cold temperatures during the setup. The strobes gave up on the first night when temperatures dropped to 10°. The restored station provides a timeless backdrop to modern railroading at night and I returned the following Sunday with some fresh batteries and warmer weather.