{"id":45254,"date":"2026-10-16T06:46:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T10:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=45254"},"modified":"2026-10-16T06:46:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T10:46:39","slug":"a-common-scene-from-40-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/a-common-scene-from-40-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"A Common Scene from 40 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On December 28, 1986, I exposed this 120-size black-and-white photograph of common freight cars at Boston & Maine’s East Deerfield Yard. The relatively clean Norfolk & Western 50-foot plug-door boxcar caught my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I framed the scene with foreground tracks, an antique wooden grain elevator at left, and a switch stand on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those days, I routinely exposed my black-and-white photos using my father’s Rolleiflex Model T with a ‘Superslide’ insert that created a broad rectangle from the Rollei’s normal 2 1\/4 in square frame. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rollei was a twin-lens reflex, which meant it had a separate optical system for framing photographs.I’d look down into the camera to view an image projected onto a simulated ground glass (actually plastic). The challenge was that this image was a mirror image of the actual scene, which could make it difficult to frame a moving train precisely, since this had to be done ‘backwards.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, I’m sufficiently dyslexic that I was rarely bothered by this handicap. I’ve noticed, though, when reviewing my old Rollei negatives, that the necessity of composing scenes in reverse seems to have aided my compositions. I often made better images with the Rollei than with the Leica rangefinder, which was also my constant companion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, I still carry a Leica occasionally, while a Rollei Model T sits on the shelf, idle and taunting me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
East Deerfield Yard, Massachusetts, December 28, 1986.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

The relatively clean Norfolk & Western 50-foot plug door boxcar caught my attention. <\/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":[5345,8816,8815,5426],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bLU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45254"}],"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=45254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45256,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45254\/revisions\/45256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}