Tag Archives: Christmas

photography

Special Christmas Post: Lionel Train Circles the Tree.

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Thomasina-the-Cat and an NW2.

Happy Christmas from Tracking the Light!

In this classic scene, my old Lionel NW2 works a local freight as Thomasina-the-Cat oversees operations.

Thomasina-the-Cat watches a Lionel NW2. Exposed with a Lumix LX3 using a mix of natural and incandescent light; f2.2 at 1/8th of second, ISO 200, auto white balance, manual focus.
Thomasina-the-Cat watches a Lionel NW2. Exposed with a Lumix LX3 using a mix of natural and incandescent light; f2.2 at 1/8th of second, ISO 200, auto white balance, manual focus.

Thomasina doesn’t know much about Christmas but she loves to watch the train.

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SPECIAL CHRISTMAS MORNING POST: Heuston Station Dublin.

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Christmas Morning, Nine Years Ago.

 Dublin is a quiet place on Christmas morning. Almost everything is shut. The roads are relatively empty. The buses aren’t running. There are scant few people on the normally busy streets. And the railways are asleep.

Irish trains don’t run Christmas Day. And Dublin’s terminals are locked up tight. It’s a strange sight to see Heuston Station by daylight with nothing moving around it. This normally busy place is unnaturally quiet.

Dublin's Heuston Station
Heuston Station on Christmas morning 2004, exposed on Fujichrome using a Contax G2 rangefinder fitted with a 16mm Zeiss Hologon flat field lens. Exposure and focus were done manually.

Yet, what better time to make architectural views of the 1840s-built terminal?

There are no buses or LUAS trams to interfere with the station’s classic design. Cars are relatively few. You can stand in the middle the street to compose photos with little chance of being run over.

Dublin's Heuston Station.
One of the peculiarities of the 16mm Zeiss Hologon is its flat field. When kept at a level with the subject this prevents vertical line convergence, however when not level, verticals suffer from extreme convergence; yet the lens doesn’t suffer from barrel-distortion, a characteristic of many wide-angle lens designs. It can be used to make distinctive architectural views.

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DAILY POST: In the Spirit of Christmas

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Cold, Holiday Lights, and Trains.

New England Central
New England Central’s local freight with locomotive 3015 idles in front of the Palmer Yard (Massachusetts) office. I exposed several images, this one was at about 15 seconds.

The other night in Palmer, Massachusetts an arctic breeze was blowing, but that didn’t stop me from making time exposures to capture the holiday spirit.

I exposed these photos despite numb hands and cold feet. I used my Lumix LX-3 (choice night camera in cold weather) fitted to a large Bogen tripod.

Years ago, I fitted plastic-foam pipe insulation to the tripod legs (as per recommendation by experienced cold-weather photographer Mike Gardner). This makes it easier to handle the tripod when it’s very cold.

My exposures varied from about 1.6 seconds at f2.8 (ISO 200) to 25 seconds at f4.0 (ISO80). I set the camera manually using the histogram from test exposures to gauge my settings.

Christmas lights on dark nights make for exceptionally difficult contrast. If you overexpose to allow good shadow detail the lights get blown out (losing their color[s] as a result). Underexpose to feature the lights and the sky and shadows turn to an inky black.

Somewhere in between is a compromised setting. Rather than ponder the subtleties of the histogram as the blood in my toes congealed, I opted to take a series of images, one after the other, and select the best of the bunch in a warm environment later on.

Palmer's star railroad themed restaurant is the Steaming Tender; this has been colorfully decorated with holiday lights. I made a series of exposures from several angles. This one was exposed correctly for the lights and looked good in the histogram, but appears too dark in my opinion. I prefer the image below.
Palmer’s star railroad themed restaurant is the Steaming Tender; this has been colorfully decorated with holiday lights. I made a series of exposures from several angles. This one was exposed correctly for the lights and looked good in the histogram, but appears too dark in my opinion. I prefer the image below.

This is about one stop brighter. While I feel it looks better overall, one noticeable flaw is that the 'Steaming Tender' sign is overexposed and the lettering isn't readable. Ultimately the solution may be to blend the two images in post processing, but I've not bothered to do that yet.
This is about one stop brighter. While I feel it looks better overall, one noticeable flaw is that the ‘Steaming Tender’ sign is overexposed and the lettering isn’t readable. Ultimately the solution may be to blend two images of different exposures in post processing, but I’ve not bothered to do that yet.

New England Central's 3015 pauses in the yard for a 25 second time exposure. I wonder if the car adds an element of interest to the photo? If not now, maybe in years to come. Lumix LX3 photo.
New England Central’s 3015 pauses in the yard for a 25 second time exposure. I wonder if the car adds an element of interest to the photo? If not now, maybe in years to come. Lumix LX3 photo.

Palmer Mass.
Looking toward CP83 (interlocking at the west end of Palmer) and the old Union Station (now the ever-popular Steaming Tender restaurant). A westward CSX intermodal train from Worcester is gliding through the scene. I exposed this at about 5 seconds at ISO 200. It is about 1.5 stops ‘over exposed’ as per the camera meter, but by using a much lighter exposure I’ve captured the effect of the moonlit high clouds and textures of the snow. On the downside, some of the Christmas lights have blown out (become seriously overexposed).

Tracking the Light posts new material every morning.

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