{"id":45105,"date":"2026-09-19T07:57:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T11:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=45105"},"modified":"2026-09-19T07:57:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T11:57:19","slug":"nose-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/nose-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Nose Light"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is \u201cnose light\u201d? You might call it \u201cfront lit.\u201d This is a lighting condition when the sun\u2019s position illuminates the railroad in such a manner that the shadows fall right between the rails, with the front of a train or locomotive brightly illuminated and both sides of the train fully in shadow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can present a bold, dramatic lighting opportunity, or result in a lackluster, contrasty image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made this view the other evening at Shelley Drive in Lancaster, Pa. As you can see from the shadows cast by the catenary masts, the sunlight is front-lighting the approaching Amtrak Keystone<\/em>. The shadows are perfectly parallel with the rails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top photo is essentially unaltered. The bottom photo has been adjusted from the same NEF RAW file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Working in Lightroom, I produced an alternative version of the image by greatly lightening the shadows and overall image, while controlling the highlights. I warmed the color balance slightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was aiming to improve the overall appearance of the photo while preserving the basic lighting situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking the Light Explores Railroad Photography!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a lighting condition when the sun\u2019s position illuminates the railroad in such a manner that the shadows fall right between the rails, with the front of a train or locomotive brightly illuminated and both sides of the train fully in shadow.<\/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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[8778,8780,8779,4637],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bJv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45105"}],"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=45105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45108,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45105\/revisions\/45108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}