Two23
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Most small towns in the Midwest owe their very existence to the railroads. Many were built either as locations for loading grain & cattle onto trains, or to service steam engines. In the 19th century most trains needed to stop for water about every ten miles or so. Boone, Iowa was an important town built along the CNW mainline. It remains an important "railroad" town today for the Union Pacific after they bought out the CNW. While very little cargo is loaded here any more, there is still a small rail yard and some important offices.
Boone sits in the middle of Iowa on the UP TransCon. With 90-120 trains per day it's the busiest track in the country. Trains regularly rumble through town day and night. Many of my photos seem to gravitate to showing the relationship of small towns and the railroads that gave them life. I'm fascinated by the way they are still entertwined after over a century's passing. Midwestern small towns can be spotted from a distance by their two tallest structures. Those are always the grain elevator and the water tower. Since I am generally trying to illustrate a relationship few of my photos have just a locomotive in them, by itself. Here, a fast moving train rolls under the watchful eye of the water tower and back into the night. It's the essence of the small Midwestern towns I know so well.
Lighting. I used two X3200 with tight grids to light the side of the engine, at 1/4 power. The nose of the engine was lit with a single SB-28 flash @ full power. A third X3200 with 11 inch reflector set @ 1/2 power was placed behind the engine (to hide spill) and light the water tower a block away. To trigger it I angled the SB-28 to throw some light onto the built in optical trigger of the monolight. CyberSync triggers were used on everything else.
Kent in SD
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I've come to think that money put into lighting gives you more additional capability than money put into camera bodies.
