Aaach. The night has gotten away from me again, having spent the last hour and a half pulling slides for Winterail and - yes - for SPORRS. It may still be a few weeks before Dave gets anything from me, but hey - we do the best we can.
I have been wanting to spend a couple of hours poring over the current selection of SPORRS shots and ask some questions/pose some commentary. Don't see that happening now until at least the weekend. BUT I have had my eye caught by a few recently posted shots, on which I would like to provide a few comments this evening. They will be brief, as my eyes are bleary. Greg Anderson's shot of BN SD70MACs on Crawford Hill: Great composition, emphasis on the lines of the track alignment, repetitive elements of gondolas and shadows, framed by the cut. Really emphasizes the machine's passage through the landscape. Charlie Dischinger's shot of BNSF at Blacktail, Montana: The fog says it all. The enlarged view, at least on my screen, looks very "impressionistic", as the color gradations in the fog above the units break down into somewhat sharply defined boxes, which to me add some depth to the image. I imagine the slide itself has a great deal of depth for a whole other set of reasons. Michael Gardner's shot of the New England Central at Franklin, Connecticut: The great French Modernist architect Le Corbusier always admired American grain elevators as nearly perfect embodiements of modern architecture, because every part of the building exposed its function to view, and the forms are thus beautiful. The elevator here is perhaps a more ragged example than the pure concrete behemoths of the Great Plains to which he referred. The forms of the railroad are equally pure and functional. The combination of the two elements in one tightly composed image is extremely effective. Doug Jensen's shot of Amtrak #6 at Truckee, California: The light and reflections are very nice. Simple. Elegant. Looks cold, too. More later... Patrick Lenahan Dallas, Texas -> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects' -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/ -> Message © 1998 SPORRS® - All Rights Reserved
