{"id":5181,"date":"2014-01-12T04:52:17","date_gmt":"2014-01-12T09:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=5181"},"modified":"2014-01-12T04:51:55","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T09:51:55","slug":"daily-post-kid-with-a-camera-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/daily-post-kid-with-a-camera-1978\/","title":{"rendered":"DAILY POST: Kid with a Camera 1978"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Amtrak 449, the Lake Shore Limited with E8As near Palmer.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

For my eleventh birthday my father gave me a 1930s-era Leica 3A and a role of film (with more to follow).<\/p>\n

Every so often Pop would gather my brother Sean and I into the car and head over the Boston & Albany (then Conrail) to wait for Amtrak\u2019s Lake Shore Limited. <\/i>Back then, the train was still running with heritage equipment and typically hauled by fairly tired E8As.<\/p>\n

If we were really lucky we might catch freight too.<\/p>\n

\"Lake<\/a>
Amtrak\u2019s westward Lake Shore Limited roars along on the Boston & Albany near milepost 81, two miles east of the Palmer, Massachusetts\u2019s diamond with Central Vermont. I exposed this image in summer 1978. In a few weeks I\u2019d start 7th grade. Weeks would pass from the time I released the shutter until I would make prints from the 35mm black & white negative.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On this day in summer 1978, we drove to Palmer. I think we\u2019d started up the Quaboag River Valley, but realized we might not have time to reach Warren before the westward Lake Shore<\/i> came roaring down the valley. So we reversed and picked a spot near milepost 81, not far from the Route 20-67 split (east of town).<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t wait long. I could hear pairs of twin 12-567s working before the headlight a appeared at the bend near the old barn. And then there it was!<\/p>\n

\u201cI see it!\u201d<\/p>\n

I made several exposures with the Leica. Unfortunately, in my panic to capture the train passing I shook the camera, so the head-on view is a bit blurred.<\/p>\n

I processed the negatives from this adventure in the kitchen sink and made prints that I placed in a homemade photo album. The negatives were well processed and have survived in good order. I scanned them a few weeks ago. My notes from the day appear to have gone missing though.<\/p>\n

\"As<\/a>
As 449 blitzed by, I made this trailing view looking toward the Route 20 overpass. My old Leica was a chore to use: Loading the camera was tricky; exposures had to be calculated manually with a hand-held photo cell; and focusing require lining up two ghostlike images while staring through a quarter inch auxiliary viewfinder. Processing the film was another unforgiving multi-step process.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Click to see:<\/p>\n

Kid with a Camera: Gun Hill Road, the Bronx, New York Summer 1980<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid with a Camera, Framingham, Massachusetts, 1982.<\/a><\/p>\n

Amtrak\u2019s Lake Shore Limited catches the glint at Palmer, May 28, 1986.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Amtrak 449, the Lake Shore Limited with E8As near Palmer. For my eleventh birthday my father gave me a 1930s-era Leica 3A and a role of film (with more to follow). Every so often Pop would gather my brother Sean and I into the car and head over the Boston & Albany (then Conrail) … Continue reading DAILY POST: Kid with a Camera 1978<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[10],"tags":[3814,31,41,43,1537,84,29,672,30,7,200],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Amtrak-Lake-Shore-Limited-a.jpg?fit=800%2C506","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-1lz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181"}],"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=5181"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5187,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions\/5187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}