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.
The shadow of the warning light kind-of bothers me on this shot but overall it's very cool. You usually get weird reflections from safety tape shooting engines with flash but I don't see any here.
I've heard it said that radio triggers are a "gateway drug." Once you buy a few of them you start thinking, "For just $300 more I could get a monolight." I've come to think that money put into lighting gives you more additional capability than money put into camera bodies.
I always visit when I'm down there. For several years my sales territory included Ames, IA. I spent one evening and one morning per month taking shots of the bridge in all seasons & weather. Every three months I'd hire a plane to fly me over for an hour. My territory changed and they started building the new bridge. I didn't go down after that until this year. I got an invite to ride the UP exec train over the Kate Shelley and tour the new bridge. I got to take my 12 yr. old son too! While riding in the observation car I talked to some high level people from Omaha about photo'ing the new bridge some night. I'm sure I can photo the center half with the equipment I have, but the bridge is a mile long and 190 ft. high. I would need about three more X3200 lights + PW triggers + battery packs to light it all. I'm willing to rent the extra equipment, looking over the location I saw that there's still a lot of trees on the north side of the bridge from where I would photo. Those would block the light. I told UP that if they could provide two cranes, I could run a cable between them and mount the lights to that to get lights above the trees. They are still interested. Also interested in having me photo another bridge they have. That one's a LOT easier to do! The new bridge isn't as "pretty" as the old though. I'm considering photo'ing another iron bridge up in North Dakota that's similar to the old KSB instead.
Kent in SD
A couple of views of new bridge:
My kid admiring the construction,
Old & new side by side.
I've come to think that money put into lighting gives you more additional capability than money put into camera bodies.
