Tag Archives: #John Gruber

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Feather River Canyon

The other day I began scanning a batch of black & white negatives that I exposed on an extended visit to California in autumn 2003.

Among these was a 120-size roll of Kodak Tri-X from a trip to the Sierra with John Gruber. On the morning of November 11, 2003, we chased a westward BNSF freight operating via trackage rights on Union Pacific’s former Western Pacific line.

We had found this freight near Reno Junction in the morning and followed it on California Highway 70.

At the famed ‘Keddie Wye,’ I made a portrait of John with his famous Nikon F, as we waited for the train to roll west.

Today, the photo of John means a lot more to me than the pictures of the freight.

BNSF westward freight on the former Western Pacific at Spring Garden, California on November 11, 2003. Exposed on Kodak Tri-X using a Rolleiflex Model T with Zeiss Tessar.
John Gruber at the ‘Keddie Wye.’ Exposed on Kodak Tri-X using a Rolleiflex Model T with Zeiss Tessar.
Exposed on Kodak Tri-X using a Rolleiflex Model T with Zeiss Tessar.

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Travels on the Lake Shore Limited-June 2013

On this day nine years ago, I was traveling east from Chicago to Worcester, Massachusetts on Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited (Train 48/448) and made these photos of the journey with my Lumix LX3 digital camera.

At the time I was working on a book about Chicago’s railroads with Mike Blaszak, Chris Guss and John Gruber.

CSX diesels at Collinwood shops, near Cleveland, Ohio.
My friend Otto Vondrak waves at Rochester, New York.
Amfleet II passenger car on Amtrak 448 near Post Road, NY.
My seat on Amtrak 448 with my old Apple laptop.
Self portrait with electronic flash having spent nearly 22 hours on the train.

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12 Years Ago-Glinty Grain Elevators

On June 18, 2010, I was traveling with John Gruber on the way back to Madison, Wisconsin from Minneapolis, where John had collected Wallace Abbey’s photographs recently donated to the Center for Photography & Art.

John wanted to take a look at a surviving portion of the old Green Bay & Western at Hixton Wisconsin. And I made this evening view of grain elevators catching the glinting sun with my Lumix LX3.

Years earlier, John had made a project of photographing GB&W and its people. This was among the smaller railroads melded into Wisconsin Central in the 1990s.

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