Oh the Wonderful Wires!
In the 1980s, I often bemoaned the ‘telegraph wires’ as I called the code lines that lined most mainlines.
It seemed like more often than not, railroads placed these multiple-tier code lines on the south side of their mainlines. This inevitably interfered with my photography and plenty of otherwise good photographic locations were fouled by the rows of poles and the wires between them.
In early 1989, when Conrail was cutting down the old code lines east of Buffalo. I thought, Hurray! Good riddance!
However, I quickly realized how wrong I’d been. In fact I’d been photographing the wires for years.
Yes, the code lines made for a visual challenge. And, undoubtedly these sometimes got in the way. But they were part of the railroad. Traditionally, they were key to its operations and often serving as a crucial part of the signaling system. They had been there since the steam era. After all, the railroad was more than just locomotives rolling along at speed.
It occurred to me how I’d often improved my photographs by working with the wires. The visual elements and patterns added by the army of time-worn polls connected by rows of cables made for more compelling images.
After the code lines were gone, the brush started to grow. And that’s now a much worse photo-hazard than the wires ever were.
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Thanks for that clarification. It’s been a long time since I worked with the Sekonic light meter, and I guess I forgot that part about the slide. My notes simply read ‘240 can’.
The Sekonic incident meter used a “high” slide outdoors with a factor of 32x, so the foot candle reading was 7,680 (your reading of 240 multiplied by 32).
Very interesting comments and approach to the subject of code lines! And nice use of them in the photos you provided – you added an important element of railroading and used the lines to help frame your mail subject. Very effective!