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Greetings,
Looking over this last month's submissions I can't help but think
that we collectively seems to be suffering from War Bonnet bias. I
remember reading in Trains that they admit to having devoted more covers
and calendar spreads to War Bonnet draped units than to any other paint
scheme. I think we suffer from that same bias. This time around there
were three top vote getters in that scheme. I also suspect that had the
winning shot (UP powered on that Silver Bridge) would had a War Bonnet
on it instead of armor yellow it would gotten 50% more votes. I'm
curious what the group thinks might bias our internal sense of
aesthetics to towards the red-silver.
Here's my thoughts (to get your juices flowing):
1). Red This is the eye catching color that always seems to
catching and draw the viewers eye to the scene quicker than another
color scheme (Blaze Orange/Hunters's Orange might beat this is some RR
willing to try).
2). Silver Red is great but its set off nicely by the Silver.
It's a hard to think of any other color that would have work as well as
that metallic silver. Why silver? It's neutral, bright, and yet still
hides some of the grime. It also looks high tech, sort like the
metallic look of the aerospace industry (circa 1945-65). It also works
well with the existing atmospheric lighting conditions. Just think
about the Soo Line Color-mark scheme (red nose light grey/white long
hood) it just does do it like that silver. The CB&Q knew this too and
its Zypher units and the red /silver freight units looked sharp.
3) Wide nose cabs make the scheme work also. A simple color band
would look too austure.
4) The color scheme works well in a lot of geographic locations
and vegetation backgrounds. Sorry to you Conrail, CSX, and NS lovers
but those schemes look out of place in a western desert shot. But you
could take any of take Keith's Burnside Bridge shot, cut-n-paste a War
Bonnet into the lead and it would still seemed aesthetically "right".
So now that took my shot at this issue do the rest of you an opinion
or perhaps a color art and design course that might explain this bias?
Do you think there is a bias?
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