When shooting night photos with flashbulbs or electronic flash, please remember the old adage that "Less is More". Too often, too many flashes are used for night photos, resulting in a perfectly exposed--but overlighted--scene that looks unrealistic and rediculous. Many of these night photography attempts have so much lighting that they wind up looking like daylight photos with black skies.
Use the lighting not only to illuminate an area, but also to create dramatic shadows for more realism. Most lighting in rail yards comes from high above--not at chest level--so get the lights up a little higher for added realism. If at all possible, have a "walk-through" before the actual shooting so that you can pace-off (measure by footsteps) distances between the subject and the light source in order to get even exposure. When shooting steam locos, remember to illuminate the far side of the engine to put some rim lighting on smokestacks, domes and other curved surfaces, and to better illuminate the smoke and steam coming out of the loco. The first time I tried this night flash photography of a steam loco, I was really poor and had to use whatever I had on hand, as I had no money to purchase new stuff. I was shooting a lot of b&w back then, so I had only clear flashbulbs and could not afford to buy blue ones for shooting color slides. Knowing that I could shoot on color negative with clear flash bulbs and have the printer correct the color balance in the darkroom, I made a night flash photo of green Southern 2-8-2 #4501with daylight color neg and clear flashbulbs. While I was lighting the loco during the lengthy time exposure (with a friend manning the all-important cardboard over the lens between flashes), some railfans set up their cameras and "robbed" my light. I took offense at this, thinking that as a commom courtesy they should have asked permission since I was supplying the flashbulbs and the artistry. They never spoke to me and I "forgot" to say anything to them about my using clear flashbulbs. Anyway, I made my exposures and was delighted with the results after correcting the color in the darkroom. Both Graham Claytor and Dave Morgan had 20x30 prints of this scene hanging in their offices. A few years later I was visiting a new railfan friend, and he started showing slides. Suddenly there appeared "my" night flash photo of the #4501--same angle, same smoke, same steam pattern in the sky. Yet, it was not the same photo because the color was disgusting. Instead of the Sylvan Green boiler that we all have seen and loved, the 2-8-2 was a shade of ugly olive drab, just like an army tank! Knowing that I had never shown my color print to railfans--let alone give any of them an 8x10 of it to copy onto slide film--I asked this man, "Just how did you get that photo?" "Oh, somebody was photographing the 4501 with flashbulbs, and my sons and I thought we would save some money by using his lighting instead of using our own flashbulbs. So we stole his light as he walked around firing his bulbs. Now I wish that we had asked him for his permission first, because then we would have learned beforehand that he was using clear flashbulbs instead of blue ones! It really is a great shot, but isn't that putrid olive color just terrible! " John B. Corns --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects
