Tag Archives: Gallery

This features recent work and exceptional images for display and discussion.

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Lens, Light, Location!

There are many ways to picture a train passing the same place. The challenge is to find new and different ways to make photos at familar spots.

I work at the North Conway Station, NH which is just a short walk from my apartment, and I photograph there almost daily.

Several times in the last couple of weeks I have featured photos of the returning Conway train approaching the North Conway Station.

I’ve reviewed some of my earlier posts, while including my photos from Wednesday afternoon. These were made using my old Canon EOS7D with an older model Canon 100-400mm zoom lens.

I’d brought this 100-400mm to work so that my office partner, Trainmaster Mike Lacey, could make some telephoto digital photos with the lens.

However, before I handed the lens over to him, I figured I may as well use it capture the Valley coming up the Hill to North with GP9 1751 in the lead.

Canon 100-400mm lens extended to 340mm.
Canon 100-400mm lens extended to 250mm.

For comparison, here are two of the earlier photos previously posted to Tracking the Light.

This is the view from Tuesday’s Tracking the Light post that show the same train, at the same location, but from ground level with a very smoggy sky. Made with my Nikon Z6 mirror less with a 24-70mm lens.
Last week’s photo. This is the afternoon Valley train passing the semaphore on a bright day. Also from ground level, but at a broader angle.

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Amtrak’s Lake Shore in 2003

I’ve been reviewing 40 years worth of Amtrak photos for an article I’m writing for a German magazine.

In the mix of old chromes was this 2003 view of the eastward Lake Shore Limited east of milepost 129 between Chester and Middlefield, Massachusetts on CSX’s old Boston & Albany mainline.

Relatively few of Amtrak’s P42 Genesis diesels were painted in the short-lived Northeast Direct livery, making this a relatively unusual photo.

Working with a Nikon fitted with an f2.8 180mm telephoto, I was trying to make the most of a heavily backlit situation in early October. In situations like this I’d typically use my notebook to shield the front element of my lens to minimize the effects of flare. Backlighting autumn foliage helps accentuate the colored leaves.

On this day Amtrak was the booby prize; I was really after the Ringling Brothers Circus Train that was coming east from Selkirk Yard. And that photo is stored in a different file.

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Smoky Light in the White Mountains.

Yesterday (26 July 2021), the White Mountains were obscured by hazy smoke that had settled upon the Mount Washington Valley as a result of raging forest fires in the West.

The sun was out, but an eerie gauzy brownish-fog was lingering in the low-lying areas filtering the light.

Working with my Nikon Z6, I made these photos in the smoky light of Conway Scenic Railroad’s Valley Train coming up the Hill from Conway. This was a stark contrast to the similar images I made last week of the Valley train arriving at North Conway.

North Conway, New Hampshire.

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Misty Evening at Crawford

There was a low ceiling at Crawford Notch, NH the other evening. The tops of the mountains were in the clouds, yet the tracks and station were clear from mist.

Kris & I arrived after sunset when there was just a hint of daylight remaining. Regular readers of Tracking the Light may recognize that I like to make photos at twilight, and often work my cameras when there is very little light remaining in the sky.

Below are three interpretations of the same Nikon NEF RAW file that reflect minor adjustments to contrast, color temperature and color saturation.

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Mifflin, PA—Nov 2001

The old Pennsylvania Railroad Middle Division is a favorite stretch of railroad.

I first visited this location on the heavily traveled east-west trunk route back in 1988 with my old pal TSH.

In November 2001, Mike Gardner and I were on a week-long photograph blitz of Pennsylvania and paused a Mifflin for a few hours to make photos of the action.

A Norfolk Southern eastward freight led by a former Conrail DASH8-40C rolls by the old Pennsylvania Railroad station at Mifflin, PA.

I exposed this Fujichrome color slide using my Contax G2 rangefinder fitted with a 28mm Zeiss Biogon lens. The Zeiss lens was extremely sharp from corner to corner while offering exceptional color rendition.

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Valley at the Golf Course

Yesterday afternoon was sunny and pleasant in North Conway, NH.

As part of my job as Manager Marketing & Events at Conway Scenic Railroad, I made a few photos of our afternoon Valley Train from Conway returning to the North Conway station.

On the final leg of its short journey down the Conway Branch this ascends a short 3 percent grade and crosses the Golf Course Crossings.

A former Maine Central Style B lower quadrant semaphore decorates the east-end of our yard. (The semaphore does not serve either a control or protective function).

I made these photos using my Nikon Z6 mirror-less digital camera and processed the camera’s NEF RAW files using Adobe Lightroom.

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Dark Chrome at Talent

July 3, 1992, I was poised on a hillside in Talent, Oregon to photograph Southern Pacific’s eastward RVME-M (Roseville to Medford manifest) on the sinuous Siskiyou Line

My Nikon F3T was loaded with Kodachrome and fitted with a 35PC lens.

An unfortunate cloud drifted in front of the sun moments before the freight descended into view.

Last night I opted to import a scan of this dark chrome into Adobe Lightroom where I imposed a series of small adjustments.

Below are two images: a scaled version of the othersie unadjusted scan, and my re-interpreted photo.

I can’t change the clouds, but I can lighten the image and adjust the color temperature and contrast to make for a nominally more pleasing photo.

Unaltered scan of SP’s RVME-M at Talent, Oregon.

My re-interpreted image.

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Three GM Diesels at White River Junction, Vermont

On Sunday evening (July 18, 2021), on our way back to New Hampshire from Massachusetts , Kris and I visited the old station at White River Junction, Vermont where we photographed three vintage General Motors diesels.

GM’s Electro-Motive Division was America’s premier locomotive builder from the late 1940s until the early 1980s.

The 1970s-era machines that we found at White RIver Junction are exmples of EMD’s locomotive zenith, when GM-EMD was synonymous with locomotive excellence.

Although it was a dull July evening, I made photos using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera. Working with Adobe Lightroom, I made nominal adjustments to improve shadow detail, overall contrast, and color saturation.

GMTX 2617 is former Penn Central GP38-2 7925.
Vermont Rail System 202 is a GP38-2 lettered for the Washington County Railroad. Seen here on the old Boston & Maine just north of the White River Junction, Vt., station.

New England Central 437 is a former Florida East Coast GP40-2.

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Dublin Airlink-2013.

On this day in 2013, I traveled on the Dublin Bus 748 Airlink from Dublin Airport to Heuston Station. I rode the upper deck of the double decked bus.

This view on board was the product of my old Panasonic Lumix LX3 digital camera.

I carried this small camera with me everywhere to document my travels until it finally failed in Spring 2014, when I replaced it with a Lumix LX7.

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North Pownal Eleven Years Ago

On this date, July 17, 2010, I exposed this series of digital images with my Canon EOS 7D fitted with a prime Canon f2.8 24mm lens.

This camera was very new to me at the time. It was my first digital SLR and I had purchased it on advice of Chris Guss just a month earlier.

I bought it to augment my first digital camera, a Lumix LX3 (first of four similar cameras).

I was traveling with David Hegarty, and we caught Pan Am Southern’s intermodal freight symbol 22K passing through the curves on the Boston & Maine Fitchburg line at North Pownal, Vermont.

This famous photographer’s location is located in the far south-west corner of the state.

This morning, I made some nominal adjustements to the Canon RAW files using Adobe PhotoShop to correct for color temperature and bring in detail in the shadows and highlights.

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Misty Arrival at Crawford.

Traveling on the head end of Conway Scenic’s Mountaineer, I was first off the train upon its arrival at Crawford station.

Although often Crawford is crowded with people when the Mountaineer arrives, the damp misty weather appeared to have discouraged all but few on-lookers.

I made this view of the train with low flying clouds shortly before the engine was uncoupled for the run-around in preparation for the return to North Conway, NH.

Believe it or not, one of the most common complaints from travelers on Conway Scenic is ‘The train came back the same way it went out!’.

If we came back any other way, that would be a pretty good trick!

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View from the Head-End

Saco River trusses at Glen, NH.

The other day I traveled on the head-end of Conway Scenic Railroad’s Mountaineer in order to take notes on running times to help revise the schedule, and to make photos for publicity, marketing and the company files.

This is a selection of the images I exposed using a FujiFilm XT1 with 16-55mm Fujinon zoom lens.

Bartlett, NH.
Bartlett Roundhouse.
3rd Iron.
Near milepost 81 on the ascent to Crawford Notch.

WIlley Brook Bridge.
Crawford Notch near mp 84.

Working with the camera’s RAW files, prior to post processing, I converted the files to DNG format using Iridient software and then for final presentation adjusted the DNG files using adobe Lightroom .

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Frosty Scene on the Redstone Branch

Last December, we brought GP7 573 out on the Redstone Branch to clear the line of snow. It was the furthest east that I’d traveled on the line as we went all the way to the East Conway Road crossing.

The effective end of track for Conway Scenic is the Saco River Bridge east of East Conway Road.

Working with my Canon EOS 3 fitted with a 40mm pancake lens, I made these images on Kodak Ektachrome E100 color slide film.

The great dynamic range of color slide film, combined with its broad tonal range and delicate colors still makes it a perfect choice for making photos in circumstances like these.

Dec 2020.

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Sligo Timber at Enfield

I made thousands of photos of Irish Rail operations on Fujichrome Sensia II (100 ISO). Typically, I had the film processed at Photocare on Abbey Street in Dublin.

In this photo, exposed on a summer Saturday, Irish Rail class 071 number 083 roars up-road at Enfield with a laden timber train. The signalman hands the staff to the driver. The staff authorized the train movement over the section (in this case Enfield to Maynooth).

This image was made was in the final years of traditional electric train staff and semaphore operation on Irish Rail’s Sligo Line.

I’ve been gradually archiving my Irish Rail slides by scanning them at very high resolution, typically between 3200 and 4800 dots per inch, saving the file in TIF format.

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Rainy Day at Tobyhanna

In October 2005, I traveled with Delaware-Lackawanna’s PT98 that operated from Scranton to Slateford Junction, Pennsylvania.

At Tobyhanna the eastward freight stopped to switch, and I made a few photos on Fujichrome using a Nikon F3. It was pouring rain, so I made the best of it.

I scanned this image using a Nikon Coolscan 5000, and adjusted the TIF raw file in Adobe Lightroom to correct the color temperature and color balance while adjusting contrast and shadow detail.

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Boston & Maine 4266

Yesterday morning was glorious and sunny in North Conway, NH.

Members of the 470 Club (a group that has preserved and owns several pieces of historic railroad equipment based at the Conway Scenic Railroad) were repairing former Boston & Maine F7A 4266 at the North Conway roundhouse..

I made these views using my Panasonic Lumix LX7.

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Vestiges of the WIld River Railroad.

It’s not on most maps, but the Wild River Railroad was a short-lived lumber-hauling line that was ripped up early in the 20th century.

The other day, Kris Sabbatino and I explored a vestige of this railroad, by driving the old right-of-way to the Wild River camp ground.

I made this photo looking northward toward Hastings and Gilead, Maine using my FujiFilm XT1 with 90mm f2.0 telephoto.

The last train used the line about 118 years ago.

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Frozen Scene

Since the heat of July is upon us, I thought it would be a refreshing alternative to present a few frosty photos from years ago.

In February 2008, I was visiting with John Gruber in Wisconsin. We drove out to Baraboo in pursuit of the Wisconsin & Southern (reporting marks WSOR). John had been photographing this line since the 1950 when it was Milwaukee Road.

In these twilight views, a WSOR SD40-2 was working the Baraboo industrial park. It was very cold. I made these images on Fujichrome using a Canon EOS-3 with 20mm lens. I scanned the slides an Epson V600 flatbed scanner and adjusted the TIF files using Adobe Lightroom to correct for color temperature.

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Woodsville—Classic Chrome

On October 8, 1992, I made this Kodachrome 25 slide of the old Boston & Maine station building at Woodsville, NH.

Although a relatively subtle quality, notice that the verticals are parallel with the sides of the photo. This was made possible by working with a Nikkor 35mm PC (Perspective Control) lens. This had an adjustible front element used to keep vertical lines from visually falling away from the film plane (when the camera was kept level).

I miss my old PC lens, which I sold in 1997.

The line in front of the Woodsville Station was lifted in the mid-1990s.

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July 4th Fireworks at North Conway.

Last night Conway Scenic Railroad operated its annual Firecracker Expresses to carry spectators from Conway to North Conway for a patriotic fireworks display.

Although it had been raining all afternoon, the sky cleared off at sunset, and the fireworks went ahead as scheduled, beginning just after 930pm.

As part of of my role as Conway Scenic’s Manager of Marketing & Events, I helped organize our special trains and their promotion. Several hundred people rode the trains which operated as advertised.

My Fiancé Kris Sabbatino and I traveled on the Firecracker Express to North Conway and made photos of the railroad’s iconic station and the explosive displays.

It was an excellent event.

Working with my Nikon Z6 Mirrorless digital camera mounted on my antique Bogen tripod, I made a variety of time-exposures.

Years ago I’d photographed fireworks using color slide film. I realized that I hadn’t done this in a long time and this was my first serious effort to capture a fireworks display digitally. I was a bit rusty at getting my timing right, but after missing a few of the loud bangs in the sky, I managed to refine my technique.

Working with the camera at ISO 200, my exposure times ranged from 4 seconds to 30 seconds, while I varied my f-stop between 4.0 and f11.

In general, I found I obtained my most satisfactory results at about 10 seconds at approximately f8.

After exposure, I imported the camera’s RAW NEF files into Adobe Lightroom for contrast and color adjustment. Through this technique I was able to improve the sky detail and balance the appearance of the images to reflect the scene more closely as I saw it. The benefit of the Nikon Z6 is its sensor’s exceptional dynamic range.

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Drama on Donner!

In March 1991, I exposed this view of a Southern Pacific coal train ascending Donner Pass.

Working with my Nikon F3T and Nikkor f4.0 200mm lens, I focused on the loaded hoppers of the coal train as diesel exhaust poured forth from tunnel 8 on Donner Pass.

SP’s SNTA-C (Skyline Mine to Trona-coal) had been routed over Donner Pass via Track 1. This was the historic 1860s alignment that involved a difficult sinuous climb around the north face of Mount Judah.

Backlighting aided capturing this contrasty scene, that I preserved on Kodachrome 25 color slide film.

In 1993, SP lifted Track 1 over Donner Pass (between Shed 47 and Norden), opting to route all traffic on its newer alignment on Track 2 via Tunnel 41.

I’ll be featuring SP and Donner Pass in my September 2021 Trains Magazine column that looks back at Southern Pacific 25 years after its merger with Union Pacific.

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Telephoto Ektachrome at East Northfield

In 1990, I’d bought a second-hand F4 Nikkor ‘prime’ 200mm telephoto. For several years I made great use of this lens to photograph trains across the West.

Through the 1990s, my photography was telephoto heavy.

These days, I’ve shifted my focal length wide.

Most of my digital photos are made with focal lengths between 16-70mm (super wide to short telephoto).

But, when I tend toward the longer telephoto range, I still reach for my film cameras.

Partially because I have several excellent long telephotos for my Canons, but also because when I think ‘long’, I think film.

So when Kris Sabbatino and I visited the Junction at ‘East Northfield,’ Massachusetts on March 8th (2021), I made this long view on Ektachrome using my old Canon EOS-3 with f2.8 200mm lens. This winning camera-lens combo has served me well for nearly 15 years.

Perhaps, it helps that I’m photographing a classic train with 1960s-1970s vintage EMD diesels bracketed by searchlight signals.

New England Central southward 611 approaches the junction at East Northfield, Massachusetts on March 8, 2021. Ektachrome 100 slide film.

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Gorham by Night

St Lawrence & Atlantic 393 passing the Gorham Station made for a subject akin to the UFO landing in the 1970’s film ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ but accented with an awesome sounding EMD 645-diesel roar.

These photos were exposed last Friday night using my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera.

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12mm at the Reflection Pond.

Here’s another of my photos at dusk from our pursuit of St. Lawrence & Atlantic’s westward freight 393 last week. Kris and I were positioned along the south shore of the Reflection Pond near Gorham, NH.

My tripod was occupied holding my Canon EOS-3 during a 30 second time exposure. This film photo remains latent at this writing.

While the Canon was exposing film, I made a few hand held photos with my FujiFilm XT1 fitted with a Zeiss 12mm Touit with the ISO set at 5,000.

These are two of the 1/2 second exposures that night.

I adjusted the Fuji RAW files using Adobe Lightroom.

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Night Photo—Secret Revealed!

I made these images the other night when Kris & I were photographing the St Lawrence & Atlantic’s westward road freight (train 393).

Night photography isn’t easy, or straight forward.

There’s a variety of approaches.

These images were exposed during the last hints of daylight.

To capture the train in motion in very low light I used a ‘secret combination’: a telephoto with a wide maximum aperture and a high ISO setting on the camera.

The telephoto minimizes the relative movement of the train to the camera sensor; the wide aperture lets in greater amounts of light and thus allows for a faster shutter speed. Likewise, the higher ISO also contributes to using a faster shutter speed.

However, the real secret was exposing manually, taking into account of the very bright headlights relative to the over all scene, while taking a position relatively off axis to the headlights to avoid the very bright lights directly hitting the front element of the lens.

FujiFilm XT1 with f2.0 90mm lens, camera set to ISO 3200 and 1/60th of a second.

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Semaphore Silhouette-Ely, Vermont.

We paused last winter at Ely, Vermont where I made this silhouette on Ektachrome of the old Boston & Maine station and its historic train order semaphore.

This was one of several slides I made that day of railroads in Vermont.

Why film? Because it works. Because some photos made on film wouldn’t as well if exposed digitally. But most importantly, because I like film. I made my first Ektachrome color slide c1971, and some 50 years later, I still occasional expose slides.

Canon EOS-3 loaded with Kodak E100; 40mm Canon pancake lens set at f22. Film processed by AgX lab. Slide scanned using an Epson V600 flatbed scanner.

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Dusk at Moosehead—June 12, 2021.

Two weeks ago ,on our last of three evenings at Moosehead, Maine, Kris and I set up at the East Outlet Bridge of the Kennebec River to catch the westward CP Rail road freight in the fading glow of dusk.

The light was dropping quickly. And by the time the train came into view it was almost dark.

Working with my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera attached to a Bogen tripod, I set the ISO to 4000, the aperture to its widest (f4) and the shutter speed to 1/60th of a second.

Notice the reflection of the locomotive head light on the bridge.

The bugs on the river were fierce!

Long after the freight passed us we could hear it making its way toward the Canadian frontier.

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MBTA on Film

During our foray back from Cape Cod in April 2021, Kris & I paused for about an hour at Shirley, Massachusetts, located on the old Fitchburg Line west of Ayer.

I first made photos here on a chase back about 1985.

Working with my Canon EOS-3 with 100-400mm image stabilization zoom, I exposed these Ektachrome slides of an MBTA shuttle train.

Fitchburg Line, Shirley, Massachusetts, 26 April 2021.
Working with my Canon EOS-3 with 100-400mm image stabilization zoom, I exposed these Ektachrome slides of an MBTA shuttle train

Ektachrome slide of an MBTA shuttle train at Shirley, Massachusetts.
Ektachrome slide of an MBTA shuttle train at Shirley, Massachusetts.

Keolis, which is the designated operator of MBTA Commuter Rail was undertaking Positive Train Control installation in the Boston-area and shuttle trains were working back and forth on the west-end of the Fitchburg run.

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Ektachrome on the Cape

In April, Kris Sabbatino & I made a visit to Cape Cod, where we spent a morning at West Barnstable photographing the Mass Coastal and visiting a chicken farm.

Mass-Coastal operated a ballast train with its rare GP28 (as previously featured on Tracking the Light). Working with my vintage Canon EOS-3 with 100-400mm image stabilization zoom, I exposed a slide sequence on Kodak Ektachrome E100 reversal film.

The film was processed by AgX lab in Michigan, and last night I scanned a few of the slides using a Epson Perfection V600 flatbed scanner powered by Epson software. After scanning, I imported the TIF files into Adobe Lightroom for color and contrast fine-tuning.

My finished results are below.

Mass Coastal GP28 with_Ballast train at West Barnstable, Massachusetts, 1138am 23April2021._
Mass Coastal GP28 with_Ballast train at West Barnstable, Massachusetts, 1138am 23April2021._

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Greenville Junction—Westbound at the Station

Finding trains on CP Rail’s Moosehead Subdivision requires patience and good luck. On our visit last weekend Kris Sabbatino & I found that operations consisted of basically one road freight in each direction a day.

Moosehead Lake is an area of exceptional scenic beauty and Greenville, Maine is a lovely rural town with several fine places to eat. We only spent a small portion of our visit to the area line-side waiting for trains, but kept our ear to the ground anticipating the sounds of an approaching freight.

Several times, Kris heard or spotted a train before I did. And this was a huge help in getting into position line side with time enough to make photos of the passing freight.

One evening at Greenville, we heard a distant whistle, and drove west to the old Greenville Junction station to photograph its passage.

Lighting at the station was tricky. The evening sky exhibited subtle hues of magenta and blue, while the station building was in shadow. Light levels were low enough to require a high ISO setting on the camera to stop the action.

For these photos, I worked with my FujiFilm XT1 with 16-55mm Fujinon zoom lens. I set the camera to ISO 1000.

In post processing, I converted the Fuji RAW files to DNG format using Iridient X Transformer, then imported these into Lightroom for adjustments. These included lightening the shadows, while darkening the highlight regions to hold detail and color in the sky, plus some contrast and color control.

For comparison, I’ve included the unmodified In-camera JPG and the adjusted DNG versions of the same image at the bottom of this posting.

Greenville Junction, Maine. Fuji RAW file converted to DNG format and adjusted using Adobe Lightroom.
Greenville Junction, Maine. Fuji RAW file converted to DNG format and adjusted using Adobe Lightroom. Compare this version to the unmodified in-camera JPG of the same image below.
Screenshot of the in-camera JPG file with information showing details of exposure.

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Kennebec East Outlet at Dusk—two views.

Among the CP Rail freights we caught on the move on the Moosehead Sub, was this westbound rolling across the Kennebec East Outlet Bridge just after sunset.

Working with my Nikon Z6 mirrorless digital camera, I made this trailing view with the camera set at ISO 1600, shutter speed 1/50, aperture at f4.0, and the 24-70mm zoom adjusted to its widest (24mm) position.

Soon after the locomotives passed we were in hot pursuit of the train for nocturnal photos. More soon!

June 2021—CP Rail SD70ACU 7044 was in the lead.

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Revisiting the Moosehead Sub—Recon.

My first visit to Canadian Pacific Railway’s Moosehead Subdivision was in the summer of 1972, when my family rented a cabin on Moosehead Lake near the East Outlet of the Kennebec River.

In the 1980s and 1990s, I made several excursions to this beautiful and sometime elusive railroad line.

Over the years this line has changed ownership several times, and CP Rail has recently re-acquired the historic route, and since then I’d been itching to get back up there.

Over this last weekend, my Fiancé, Kris Sabbatino and I made the drive from Center Conway, NH to Moosehead, Maine where we stayed at the very same campground that I had visited as a child back in 1972.

Train operations are sparse and I wanted to make the most of trains if and when we caught them on the move. So first we investigated locations near our cabin.

Here are a few photos exposed using my FujiFilm XT1 of the East Outlet Bridge of the Kennebec River at Moosehead, Maine.

More photos of the Moosehead Sub to come over the coming days!

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SEPTA’s Broad Street Subway

In December 2014 on a blitz of SEPTA’s rail transit in Philadelphia with my brother Sean, I made this view of the Broad Street Subway at the Girard Avenue stop.

My feeling is that SEPTA’s Broad Street Subway is among the least photographed rail transit lines in the Northeastern United States.

Exposed using my First Lumix LX7.

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Tips and Technique

IRRS Special at Cultra

On 12 April 2003, I traveled on the Irish Railway Record Society special from Dublin to Northern Ireland. This operated with NI Railways GM 111 class diesels and NIR Mark II carriages.

I made this photo during a photographers stop at Cultra on the Bangor Line.

This was exposed using a Contax G2 rangefinder loaded with FUJI Neopan 400 black & white film.

I processed the film using Agfa Rodinal Special mixed 1-32 for 3 minutes 45 seconds at 70 degrees F. I scanned the negatives last year with an Epson V600 flatbed scanner.

I’ve composed this post several days in advance as I am ‘off the grid’ for several days.

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Dublin Monochrome Sunset—12 APril 2003.

I’d just returned to Dublin from Belfast on an Irish Railway Record Society special train.

Working with my Contax G2 rangefinder loaded with Fuji Neopan 400 black & white film, I composed this silhouette of the signals and buildings near Dublin’s Connolly Station.

I processed the film using Agfa Rodinal Special mixed 1-32 for 3 minutes 45 seconds at 70 degrees F. I scanned the negatives last year with an Epson V600 flatbed scanner.

This post was prepared in advance as I am ‘off the grid’ for a few days.

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