{"id":44770,"date":"2026-07-28T06:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=44770"},"modified":"2026-07-27T21:08:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T01:08:52","slug":"johnsonville-tower-march-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/johnsonville-tower-march-1984\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnsonville Tower-March 1984"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lately, I\u2019ve been scouring my archives for images of signal towers for my next book. Among the photographs that surfaced was this seriously underexposed image of a westbound Guilford freight on the Boston & Maine passing the disused signal tower at Johnsonville, New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was a senior in high school when my father lent me his 1960-vintage Rolleiflex Model T, which I loaded with 120 Ektachrome. My exposures were less than ideal, and this image was among the dark transparencies that resulted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previously on Tracking the Light<\/em>, I detailed my methodology for recovering some of the other photographs from this unfortunate roll of film. See: https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/boston-working-with-some-underexposed-photos\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve applied a similar strategy to improving this photograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I like about this image is the way I balanced the composition to show the abandoned right-of-way to the left of the tower. This was the old Troy & Boston route, dating from the 1850s, which later became part of the Fitchburg Railroad before ultimately being absorbed into the expanding Boston & Maine network. The line on the right served as the B&M\u2019s main line to Mechanicville and Rotterdam Junction, New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are three versions of the same image. The top is the original, unmodified dark transparency. The two lower versions demonstrate different degrees of lightening, color correction, and contrast adjustment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know if this view will make the book, but working on it brought back memories from long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tracking the Light<\/em> looks back at old photographs!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately, I\u2019ve been scouring my archives looking for images of signal towers for my next book. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44776,"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":[8727,7912],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/BM_Johnsonville_NY_Mar_1984_BrianSolomon\u00a9590115-5.jpg?fit=2048%2C1207","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bE6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44770"}],"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=44770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44775,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44770\/revisions\/44775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}