A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how much I like Christmas lights. Well, the Christmas holiday season isn’t over yet and to prove it I got a chance to set my tripod up on the cold, winter’s river beach a few minutes down the hill from my home to photograph Canadian Pacific Railroad’s Holiday Train.
CP Rail’s website says, “The CP Holiday Train program launched in 1999 and has since raised more than $13 million and four million pounds of food for communities along CP’s routes in Canada and the United States…. The holiday season is the best time of the year, and we look forward to bringing together thousands of Canadians and Americans this season for this incredibly important cause and a great time.”
As I have in the past, I positioned myself on the beach across the river so I could get a wide shot of the brightly lighted train passing on the opposite side with the dark hills and forest behind. I arrived an hour in advance while there was still plenty of light and made a few test shots. The schedule put the train at our location a bit after 4 p.m., just as the sun was going down.
The time was about right for my preference of shooting just while there is still that cool, blue light illuminating the sky and I have enough light in my photograph to define the train from its surroundings. I set my camera at ISO 3200. That allowed me to keep my aperture at f/5.6 for plenty of depthof -field. I was a bit under exposed, but a stop or two really didn’t bother that kind of low light image. After all, the train lights were very bright. As with past years there was a strong, cold wind blowing down river. In past years it was colder and I had bundled in the car drinking hot chocolate till the train arrived, but this year was warmer and I just stood there enjoying watching my neighbours children running around on the beach.
When the train finally arrived the three year old boy and I both yelled, “The Christmas Train”. I am sure his mother, shivering in the cold wind, just shook her head thinking, “Boys”.
A young fellow purchased a 1980s film camera from my shop today and we talked for some time about how interesting prints made from film are. He was really thrilled to begin capturing the world around him with film.
As I selected the images that I had edited and worked over using several computer programs for this article I thought of that young photographer and the journey he is beginning with film. I am sure he will have fun, but the photographs I made of the Holiday Train would have been beyond the ability of most popular films he will find at local outlets, and I had the unfair advantage of computer programs with which I could squeeze every bit of data there was in the digital file I made.
Photographing the Holiday Train was fun and I am always surprised that there aren’t carloads of photographers joining me on the beach when the train comes by.
These are my thoughts for this week. Contact me at www.enmanscamera. com or emcam@telus.net. Stop by Enman’s Camera at 423 Tranquille Road in Kamloops. I sell an interesting selection of used photographic equipment. Don’t hesitate to