CERM 6th Annual Night Photo Shoot

This past Saturday June 13th was the 6th Annual Night Photo Shoot at the Connecticut Eastern Railroad Museum in Willimantic.  We had to top last year’s shoot, which included the use of the turntable in a number of shots.  This year the volunteers came through again, and kicked things up a notch.  As you can see in the teaser shot to the left, we were able to do a lineup in each of the six pits of the roundhouse.  Yep, the museum volunteers laid track from the turntable to every bay in the roundhouse – the last bit of track to pit #2 was actually finished a couple hours before the night shoot began.  Talk about hard work…

This year, 18 photographers gathered in Willimantic on a rainy evening to shoot trains in the dark.  Despite the rain, a great time was had by all, and from what I’ve heard back thus far, everyone was happy with their photos from the evening.

First off, a huge “thank you” to my fellow museum volunteers who put in the back-breaking work, preparing the site for the shoot.  From the general cleanup, to laying track into each pit of the roundhouse, to moving the equipment around (although, I think they really enjoyed that part) – without them, the shoot wouldn’t have happened.  Of course, another big thank you to friend & fellow photographer Bob LaMay for helping me come up with the scenes for this year’s shoot.  And another huge tip of the hat to Fred Jones, who came up from New Jersey to lead the lighting effort.  I did end up lending a hand with most of the shots at the roundhouse – there was just too much ground to cover for one guy – but Fred did a bang-up job as the primary light guy.  And last, but not least, a huge “thanks!” to all the photographers that came down to support the event.  This year we continued the tradition of drawing from surrounding states – this year’s photographers hailed from CT, NJ, NY, MA and RI.

OK, enough of that stuff.  Here’s the photos.  The stuff at the beginning was from earlier in the day as the volunteers were positioning the equipment for the shoot.  And FYI, no Baldwins were harmed during the execution of the Night Photo Shoot (it was done with a scrap of steel) – you’ll see what I’m talking about further on down the page…

Thanks for looking!
Tom