Bed time for 7470. The crew of CN 7470 prepare to return their locomotive to its stall in the historic North Conway Roundhouse, after a full day of railfan activities. The final act for 7470 and some of her diesel stablemates, was a free night photo shoot offered by the railroad for those who cared to stick around. I'm glad I did. For although the professional photographer who conducted the shoot was not a railroad photographer per se, he did a most excellent job with the lighting. Instead of just 3 or 4 large, powerful strobes, he used a rather large array of smaller ones, that were strategically spaced around the turntable area. The result was perhaps the most even lighting job I've seen in quite some time, and one that could be shot easily at 100 ISO. Over the last decade, I've done a ton of night photo shoots using both hot (fixed) lights and strobes and although the hot lights do typically offer participants more opportunities to shoot different angles and unique compositions, the strobe lights are far superior at providing a natural-looking image, with nice, crisp smoke and steam, and sharper rendering of the human element. Given the choice, I prefer strobe lighting in most situations.
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom-seen beauty of the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)
