{"id":44512,"date":"2026-06-23T06:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T10:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=44512"},"modified":"2026-06-22T19:20:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:20:42","slug":"phases-of-my-railroad-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/phases-of-my-railroad-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Phases of My Railroad Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During my travels, I\u2019ve found that several loosely-defined phases influence how I approach railroad photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These may be described as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Research<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Discovery (or Survey)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Intensive Investigation<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Initial Execution<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Refinement<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Revisitations<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    These phases may span days, weeks, years, or even a lifetime. Sometimes I skip a step, and often the phases overlap. However, they frequently alter the way I see a railroad or interpret a place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In late 1989, I made my survey trips to California’s Donner Pass. The photographs I made during that initial exploration were very different from the images I created during later phases of my work there. Yet those early photographs laid the groundwork for the more refined images that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"
    In a scene that would soon change beyond description; Southern Pacific at Norden, California at the summit of Donner Pass in November 1989. Kodachrome 25, exposed using a Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Complicating this process is when the Discovery phase coincides with the onset of significant change to the subject. This can be frustrating, since a railroad may be at its most interesting to me before my understanding of it\u2014and my photography\u2014have had an opportunity to mature and reach a stage of refinement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My phases are easiest to describe when discussing my BIG projects\u2014the detailed, intesive visual studies. The phases are more complicated to understand when I rush into a situation where it is necessary to skip, combine, or reverse the order of phases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There have also been countless occasions during my travels when all of the phases were necessarily-compressed into a single brief experience, such as a one-time chase of freight through unfamiliar territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Tracking the Light explores railroad photography!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Phases may span days, weeks, years, or even a lifetime. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44513,"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":[8684],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/SP_helpers_Track1_Norden_Calif_Nov1989_KM\u00a9Brian_Solomon234617-2.jpg?fit=2048%2C1357","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bzW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44512"}],"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=44512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44514,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44512\/revisions\/44514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}