{"id":44479,"date":"2026-06-16T06:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T10:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=44479"},"modified":"2026-06-15T22:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T02:23:22","slug":"cottage-grove-16-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/cottage-grove-16-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Cottage Grove\u201416 years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On this day in 2010, John Gruber and I chased a Wisconsin & Southern local toward Cottage Grove, Wisconsin. This was John’s backyard, and I was along for the ride. Over the years, John and I made numerous photographic expeditions along Wisconsin & Southern’s lines radiating from Madison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had purchased a new Canon EOS 7D just a few weeks earlier and was still relatively new to digital photography. I was curious to see what I could do with this new tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this view, I fitted my Canon 200mm prime telephoto lens to the digital body. The 7D’s APS-C sensor represented Canon’s latest innovation. It enabled me to work at ISO 400 while retaining a high level of detail, while the sensor’s \u20181.6x crop factor\u2019 gave the 200mm lens approximately the same angle of view as a 320mm lens on a traditional full-frame 35mm film camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using greater telephoto compression, I made the most of the roadside utility lines and the patterns created by the highway itself, incorporating them as compositional elements surrounding the locomotive as it crossed the road. I like the color and classic lines of the EMD SD40-2 working long-hood first. The soft color palette and contrast of this image were partially a function of the Canon sensor and optics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, I was mimicking a similar composition that I’d made 18 years earlier on Kodachrome using 400mm Tokina lens featuring an NHV GP9 crossing Highway 116 near Littleton on the former Boston & Maine New Hampshire Division route to Groveton\/Berlin\u2014but that’s really a story for another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Wisconsin & Southern image was exposed on June 16, 2010; f\/5.6, 1\/125 second, ISO 400. Although I’ve made modest adjustments to contrast and color balance, this JPEG was created from the original Canon CR2 RAW file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking the Light Explores Railway Image Making!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Using greater telephoto compression, I made the most of the roadside utility lines and the patterns created by the highway itself, incorporating them as compositional elements surrounding the locomotive as it crossed the road. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44481,"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":[6060,10,6108,48],"tags":[6598,8675,6853],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WSOR_SD40-2_near_Cottage_Grove_Wis_\u00a9BrianSolomon_IMG_0705.jpg?fit=2048%2C1365","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bzp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44479"}],"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=44479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44482,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44479\/revisions\/44482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}