{"id":38049,"date":"2024-01-14T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-14T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=38049"},"modified":"2024-01-14T09:13:02","modified_gmt":"2024-01-14T14:13:02","slug":"etherquest-30-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/etherquest-30-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Etherquest!\u201430 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At 7am on January 14, 1994, it was -18F in St. Paul, Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drove to a location that I’d previously explored at Daytons Bluff, near West Hoffman along the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Icy air resulted in magenta light with a freezing mist blowing off the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found that to keep my lenses from fogging up, I had to keep my cameras outside, while I stayed warm in the car. My Nikon F3T was uncooperative since the battery didn’t fare well in the cold. Luckily, I had an F2 that I’d borrowed from fellow photographer Brian Jennison, and a Nikkormatt FTN, both of which were fully manual cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It ultimately warmed to a flat 0 degrees by midday, but the lighting remained surreal and ethereal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That evening as an icy dusk settled over the Twin Cities, I coined a mission and a name for my transcontinental winter adventure: Etherquest!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dawn at Hoffman Avenue\u2014’West Hoffman’\u2014Daytons Bluff, St. Paul, Minnesota, January 14, 1994-Kodachrome 25 slide film, exposed using a Nikon F2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Westward Burlington Northern freight catches the morning glint at West Hoffman, St. Paul. Kodachrome 25 slide film, exposed using a Nikon F2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Eastward Canadian Pacific-Soo Line freight crosses the ice clogged Mississippi Rive against a frozen sky. Kodachrome 25 slide film, exposed using a Nikon F2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Northtown Yard at dusk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the remainder of my overland trip to Los Angeles, I focused my photographic efforts on capturing railroads in ethereal light, especially around sunrise and sunset, and I named the whole trip Etherquest!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months later, I wrote this up as a feature article published in Pacific RailNews and titled Etherquest!<\/em>. This unusual article was a contributing consideration in Pentrex Publishing’s choice to hire me in June 1994 as an associate editor for PRN and its sister publication, Passenger Train Journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the job resulted in another epic drive from California to Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

At 7am on January 14, 1994, it was -18F in St. Paul, Minnesota. I drove to a location that I’d previously explored at Daytons Bluff, near West Hoffman along the Mississippi River. Icy air resulted in magenta light with a freezing mist blowing off the river. I found that to keep my lenses from fogging … Continue reading Etherquest!\u201430 years later<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","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],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-9TH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38049"}],"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=38049"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38068,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38049\/revisions\/38068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}