{"id":44674,"date":"2026-07-15T06:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=44674"},"modified":"2026-07-13T21:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T01:59:07","slug":"botched-framing-at-west-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/botched-framing-at-west-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"Botched Framing at West Chicago!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a neat photo from my archive, exposed back in 2013 at West Chicago, Illinois, where Union Pacific’s former Chicago & North Western main line crosses Canadian National’s former Elgin, Joliet & Eastern route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet every time I look at this image, I see a missed opportunity. I had a fleeting moment to get the composition just right\u2014and I blew it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two problems. The first is straightforward: a shutter speed of 1\/500 second wasn’t quite fast enough to freeze the action, and the nose of the Metra F40PH-2 is slightly blurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second problem is the one that really bothers me. I managed to clip the top of the CN locomotive on the freight holding south of the crossing. If I’d positioned the camera just a few inches lower\u2014or released the shutter a fraction of a second sooner\u2014the photograph would have clearly included the freight in the distance with the grating annoyance of visual intersection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
This is an enlargement of the top photo to better demonstrate the unfortunate visual intersection between the two locomotives. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some problems are easy to fix in post-processing, but a compositional error like this isn’t one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

This is a neat photo from my archive, exposed back in 2013 at West Chicago, Illinois, where Union Pacific’s former Chicago & North Western main line crosses Canadian National’s former Elgin, Joliet & Eastern route. Yet every time I look at this image, I see a missed opportunity. I had a fleeting moment to get … Continue reading Botched Framing at West Chicago!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44676,"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":[8704,5158,8702],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Metra_152_West_Chicago_vert_w_diamonds_\u00a9BrianSolomon_IMG_2889_DxO-scaled.jpg?fit=1707%2C2560","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bCy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44674"}],"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=44674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44678,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44674\/revisions\/44678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}