In March, I stood trackside at Newark, Delaware with fellow photographer Doug Scott. We were fortunate to catch an Amtrak maintenace train with freshly painted GP38-3 744 in the lead (see: https://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/fresh-paint-on-a-classic-emd/).

I was working with two cameras; a Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital body with 24-70mm Nikkor Z-series zoom, and my father’s old Leica M4 with f1.4 35mm Summilux prime wide-angle loaded with Kodak Ektachrome 100.

Below are a pair of successive images; the first is a digital image exposed as an NEF RAW image using the Nikon, the second was on Ektachrome with the Leica. The slide was processed at AgX Imaging and scanned using a Nikon LS-5000 scanner. Both received very nominal post-processing in Lightroom to adjust contrast/gamma, and color bias to make the most of the data captured.

I like both images for different reasons.

Occasionally I’m asked why I continue to work with traditional color slides. That’s a long story. The simplest answers are: aesthetics, continuity and longevity. The latter seems to upset some photographers, so I’ll leave that for a later discussion.

Tracking the Light Explores Railroad Photography!