On December 28, 1986, I exposed this 120-size black-and-white photograph of common freight cars at Boston & Maine’s East Deerfield Yard. The relatively clean Norfolk & Western 50-foot plug-door boxcar caught my attention.

I framed the scene with foreground tracks, an antique wooden grain elevator at left, and a switch stand on the right.

In those days, I routinely exposed my black-and-white photos using my father’s Rolleiflex Model T with a ‘Superslide’ insert that created a broad rectangle from the Rollei’s normal 2 1/4 in square frame. 

The Rollei was a twin-lens reflex, which meant it had a separate optical system for framing photographs.I’d look down into the camera to view an image projected onto a simulated ground glass (actually plastic). The challenge was that this image was a mirror image of the actual scene, which could make it difficult to frame a moving train precisely, since this had to be done ‘backwards.’

However, I’m sufficiently dyslexic that I was rarely bothered by this handicap. I’ve noticed, though, when reviewing my old Rollei negatives, that the necessity of composing scenes in reverse seems to have aided my compositions. I often made better images with the Rollei than with the Leica rangefinder, which was also my constant companion.

Today, I still carry a Leica occasionally, while a Rollei Model T sits on the shelf, idle and taunting me.

Tracking the Light Explores Railroad Photography!