Back to the Rails. Rail yards are such a great land of contrasts. There is so much activity, yet nobody is around. I am drawn to them by all the big equipment rolling around, but I’m nervous about either scary people or getting in trouble with the railroad bulls or simply getting killed. My only recent solution is to bring someone along to keep an eye on me.

This composition sets up a little tension in that the graffiti and the dark detailed rails are at the bottom left, yet the only place for your eye to escape is at the top where one can see just a little beyond the boxcar. I modified the image to sharpen the corrugation and introduce a stronger vertical effect to pull your eye out of the bottom of the image. The numerous diagonals also add dynamism to the image.

Often people (like my dad, sorry pop) center the subject, which leaves the eye sitting in the middle and getting bored. If you see something interesting, like the graffiti, look around it and find a near-by compliment. In this case it is simply the open space above the boxcar. The two spaces support each other as positive and negative. So next time you see something, look around it and find it’s frame — something bright needs a dark, something sharp needs a smooth. The word frame also hints to “frame of reference” so something to give scale or location helps, but put the two opposite each other in some way, not one surrounding the other. If I had pulled back and centered the graffiti, it would have been boring, just enough space above the boxcar is enough.

So what is the effect I’m applying to the image? It’s called Direct Positive. It’s mimicking the old photography developing technique. The effect is saturated colors, blown-out blues and wicked contrast. Now it can all be done in post with photoshop or lightroom. Lightroom actually has a preset for it and I use it to start from and then tweak it to match the image. I’ve done this before.

Let’s watch the comments and see if my dad catches the slight. Even better, maybe he’ll finally put a picture on flickr to prove me wrong.

That beautiful morning light. So much easier to see now that it happens closer to noon than midnight. I saw wonderfully-pink clouds Tuesday morning as I was leaving for Caribou Coffee and sprinted for the lake. Of course, I missed it, but it reminded me of this picture I took earlier in the summer when you actually had to make an effort to see it.

A model train set? Nope, this is the North Yard of the BNSF Railroad that I visitied with Bob Kupbens on Saturday. What makes it “miniaturized” is a tilt-shift effect that makes the depth of field appear to be very shallow. Depth of field is the area that is in focus. This is determined by several factors: aperture, focal length and the distance to the subject. When the distance to the subject is as far away as these trains are, everything is in focus. The effect is normally only seen in close-up objects, like a small train set. That’s what makes this seem like it’s miniaturized.

How then did I get the effect on something this large? I could use a bellows camera and tilt-shift the lens, but there are several cool tools that allow you to do this with a 35mm SLR. But that’s not how I did it. The most powerful photography tool was easier to employ — Photoshop.

Last Friday they showed up — bobbing on the gentile waves of Lake of the Isles. I took a bunch of pictures of them with my dubious 70-210mm Nikkor. Alas, something was wrong. I bought that lens a few months ago and was starting to notice a problem with it. The pictures I took looked horrible. What was wrong? Turns out, that great deal I got was on a film lens not a digital one.

I took it back to National Camera and they took it back! That is a great company. I could save money buying things online, but I prefer seeing stuff before I buy it and getting great help. I bought the wrong lens at Roseville, but went back to the Golden Valley store to see Steve; he knew what was wrong. And I bought a new lens. That damn bird cost me $500.

So here is the new and improved Northern Shoveler I shot yesterday morning with my new Nikon 70-300mm VR. There are about 30 of these lil’ guys chugging around the lake dabbling away. I chased a Pileated Woodpecker for a while but he wasn’t following his lighting cues.

This weekend presented two different views on Minneapolis for me, Saturday was gray, cold and crappy, Sunday was sunny, warm and pleasant. On Saturday I went shooting with Bob Kupbens in North East Minneapolis. We also went to the Mpls Library Downtown. Sunday was a nice day for a walk around Lake of the Isles. The two days and pictures were a great contrast of the big city.

Minneapolis was built by the railroads. The odd layout of the town and the crooked streets make much more sense if you look at an old map of The Cites from the first part of the 20th century. The railroads all follow smooth and straight lines through the area and around the rivers. The city grew around them. But before the railroads, there were the lakes. Interstate 394 and Lake Street are the only ways though the chain of lakes for miles. The two forces of rail and lake have constricted the city and yet created it at the same time.

A gnarled tree growing on a rocky cliff is challenged by it’s environment, but it derives its character from this challenge. How have your challenges made you a better person? Take time on this veteran’s day to reflect on the challenges and be grateful for how they shape our character and make us stronger.

Another critter joined me on my walk today. Learn more about the white-breasted nuthatch.