Hopewell Station and the Police

The week of November 15th I was in New Jersey again for work, and I managed to do a bit of shooting while there.  Not as much as usual, but I did manage to kill a few pixels in the Garden State.  The first night I also met up with another photographer in Hopewell, NJ trying to shoot some of the CSX Trenton Line action.  We did get some shots in, but not as many as we would have liked, since we were, um, asked to leave.

After I checked into the hotel up in Bridgewater, I headed down to Hopewell to try and get a few more night shots at the station on the CSX Trenton Line.  This time, instead of going solo like I did before, I met up with Steve Barry, editor of Railfan & Railroad magazine (his personal site is here).  Figured it would be nice to have a little company, and Steve is  also experimenting with synchronized flashes at night, so we could continue to compare notes in addition to the usual “railfan BS session” that tends to happen, where the subject can cover any ground.

Well, as we were shooting, the subject switched to run-ins with law enforcement.  After trading a few stories, and bagging three westbounds (including an empty Tropicana train) we started to set up for our first eastbound heading our way.  While setting up we heard someone yelling from across the tracks, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.  A couple minutes later we could hear him again – this time talking to what sounded like the police.  OK, I guess we were being called in – not a first for either of us.

Soon after that, our eastbound showed up and we got our shot (well, mine was woefully out of focus for anything but web use), and soon after the markers went by us, the person that called us in came over and confronted us.  Basically he told us that the flashes were keeping his kids up, and that there’s an ordinance of no activity after 9pm.  Basically we didn’t have much to say, other than that we were sorry, since we didn’t know the local ordinances.  We figured we’d wait for the police officer to show up to straighten things out.

A half minute or so later, the cruiser showed up, and after speaking to the man that phoned us in, came over to speak to us.  He was quite apologetic once he figured out were were simply photographers.  He did confirm that in fact there was an ordinance in place for activity after 9pm in the park, but also mentioned that if we weren’t phoned in by a resident, he never would have bothered us.  Basically he asked us to pack it in since it was pushing 11pm, and we gladly complied.  Also in our conversation we were told that we’d be welcome back to shoot in the earlier winter darkness, just so long as we were wrapped up by 9pm.

Of course, as we were breaking down, another eastbound came by, but this time with an extra symbol.  We both watched with anticipation as to what it was – hoping that it wasn’t something like the CSX office car special.  As they came rolling past the station, it was simply a light power move.  Phew…  Once we packed up all our gear, we bid eachother farewell and headed back to our homes – well, Steve went home, I had to go back to the hotel…  So here’s the pictures from the night.  Of note, though, is the one of the Tropicana cars – you can see my super-elaborate lighting setup.  A Lumedyne and Canon 420EX.

Thanks for looking!
Tom