I arrived at the old Maine Central station at Crawfords (New Hampshire) in the ‘blue hour’—that last hint of daylight before night.
It was snowing lightly.
The railroad was quiet. No trains are expected for months to come!
The scene was serene.
To make this photo, I had my FujiFilm XT1 with 28mm pancake lens mounted on a Bogen tripod. I set the meter for 2/3s of stop over exposure in ‘A’ mode at the widest aperture. The camera selected the shutter speed at 25 seconds.
Over the course of several minutes, I made several exposures ranging from 20 to 30 seconds each.
Tracking the Light Posts Daily!
For the view of Crawford’s at Dusk I was working with ‘Auto White balance’
If I had used a daylight balance the scene might appear even more blue.
What was your white balance setting?
The railroad was no always so quiet. According to the Feb 1926 Official Guide, Crawford’s saw one passenger train daily in each direction, a Portland-St Johnsbury round trip, westbound late morning at Crawford’s and returning east to Portland in late afternoon. Ten years earlier, there had been twice daily service. Once daily service, somewhat speeded up, is still shown in the May 1945 Guide and is understood to have survived until 1958.
Michael Walsh