Adjusting camera position and zoom resulted in photo 9. Much
better. Perhaps a contest candidate?
Not quite. The action in this shot (9) seems to be too far from the
camera. Plus that green stakebed seemed out of place and I didn't
really care for the shadow color on the side of the RS-3. Yes, I was
being picky, but in a contest picky is the name of the game.
More scene – more details
In photo 10 the camera is zoomed out a bit more, adding scope
to the scene. I swapped a better-weathered yellow truck for the
green one next to the fuel tank (8) and positioned it to avoid
rear window reflections. The SP&S RS-3 got replaced by a BC&SJ
2-8-0 with Photoshopped smoke and the GP7 is now pushing
a set of empty log cars clearly showing two trains a work, but
10
10: Rearranged composition – better or just different?
not blocking the view. The flat car in front of the water tank got
replaced by a more photogenic tank car and a little bit of gravel
on the road added additional texture (go easy on the gravel,
what looks OK to the eye looks way overdone to the camera).
One thing never added to this area was switch stands for the
turnouts. I added a couple of them with a brakeman minding
one and that helped bring the scene to life.
Other viewpoints
I still wanted to shoot from some other viewpoints.
Photo 11 shoots across the grade crossing into the B. Josef gravel
quarry entrance and shows SP&S RS-3 passing the Oakhill Turn.
The wide angle helps bring out the land forms and the lighting
is on the near side of the locos, so the shadows aren't dramatic.
I thought it was an OK shot but the aspect ratio wasn't the best
for the contest and not the RS-3's most photogenic angle.
For photo 12 I propped the camera in place on the spur track.
Using the Helicon Remote utility
helped here because I didn't
need to touch the camera to shoot the focus stack. I added the
11
11: Meeting at the grade crossing
Up the Creek - 6
MRH-Aug 2013
