{"id":26024,"date":"2019-03-24T11:36:33","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T15:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=26024"},"modified":"2019-03-24T11:36:47","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T15:36:47","slug":"thirty-years-ago-on-conrails-former-erie-theres-more-here-than-meets-the-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/thirty-years-ago-on-conrails-former-erie-theres-more-here-than-meets-the-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"Thirty Years Ago on Conrail\u2019s former Erie\u2014There\u2019s more here than meets the Eye."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Please note: Although Brian will be traveling next week, Tracking the Light will continue to post articles every day.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


It was Spring 1989 when I made this view of Delaware & Hudson\u2019s westward EBBU at West Middlebury, New York on Conrail\u2019s former Erie Railroad line from Hornell to Buffalo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was during New York, Susquehanna & Western\u2019s operation of D&H, after it left the Guilford system and before it was acquired by Canadian Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading the train is a Delaware & Hudson locomotive still wearing Guilford colors but lacking the big \u2018G\u2019 on the side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

West Middlebury was a preferred location to catch mid-morning westward trains because the alignment of the railroad favored the morning sun as actually it ran southwest-northeast before curling around to get over Attica Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was still studying photography at the Rochester Institute of Photography, and typically worked with my antique Leica and Rolleiflex cameras. However for this image, I owe the generosity of my college roommate, Bob, who lent me his Hassleblad 503C for the day. I loaded this with Kodachrome 64 120, which offered superb sharpness and color rendering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The camera\u2019s 80mm Zeiss Planar lens was among the sharpest lenses available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To demonstrate this fantastic combination of camera and film, I\u2019ve offered three versions of this photo. The first is the uncropped image; the others show degrees of cropping to demonstrate both the versatility of the Hasselblad\u2019s square format and the ability to crop in while retaining detail and sharpness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Uncropped 120 K64.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Slight crop to offer a superior balance and correct the level.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Tight crop to better feature the train. Normally I disapprove of cropping, however I’ll make a rare exception for this circumstance where I feel nominal cropping improves the photograph.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made this view handheld, and unfortunately didn\u2019t get the level 100 percent perfect, so for years this view sat in my \u2018seconds\u2019 file. You could make a wall size print from the original chrome and count the blades of grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking the Light posts Every Day!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made this view of Delaware & Hudson\u2019s westward EBBU at West Middlebury, New York on Conrail\u2019s former Erie Railroad line from Hornell to Buffalo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,48],"tags":[4537,5509,7535,9,1369],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Brian-Solomon-494982-3.jpg?fit=4738%2C2970","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-6LK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26024"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26028,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26024\/revisions\/26028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}