Last night I was able to attend a meeting of the Windham Photography Club – something I haven’t done in a while because of my work & family schedule. But I was able to get to last night’s meeting, and I was glad I did. The guest speaker was Mike DiStefano of the Photographic Society of Rhode Island and a respected member of the New England Camera Club Council (NECCC). He was there to critique some of the club members’ work and to talk about critiquing in general. So I brought in a couple of my prints – one color and one black & white. The interesting thing happened to the black & white shot.
Just for the record, the color shot was this one:
[cpg_imagefixthumb:353]And he had some kind words to say about it. Really liked the fact that it still told a story despite lack of detail in the silhouetted farm equipment, and the contrast between the dark equipment and bright sun. But that’s not what really struck me. It was what he said about the black & white shot I brought in.
This is what I brought in for the B&W:
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7976]OK, he pretty much raved about the photo. Loved the perspective, loved the shadows across the running gear, loved the lines that the sill and side rods provided, and loved that there was a full range of tones, from white, all the way to deep black, even though it was leaning heavily towards the darker tones. Of course, I was very flattered that he thought that of my print – I am pretty happy with the way it came out on paper. But that’s not what really struck me. You see, I did go in there with a kind of an experiment going regarding this particular image.
Earlier that day, I uploaded 3 pictures to Railpictures.net from my little night shoot in Essex last Friday night (the top three listed here), one of which was the shot I printed & brought into the critique session. It’s interesting to see that this one image received the least number of hits there, and even more telling, nobody “favorited” the image (the other two have 3 favorites at the time of writing this). This tells me that it really didn’t catch the interest of any of the viewers. As a side note, the shot of #97’s “parking brake” did end up getting the most views of the three, and not the more “traditional” 3/4 view of the locomotive, which did take me a bit by surprise. And, yes I do realize that my little experiment is less than anything that can be even considered as scientific, and Railpictures.net isn’t the de facto sources for railroad photography, but the results are interesting nonetheless.
I just found it interesting how railfans/rail photographers and non-rail photographers, and more specifically NECCC judges, look at things differently. The shot that railfans seem to pass by with nary a notice, Mr. DiStefano stated in no uncertain terms that it could win a competition outright. Actually, that’s one of the main reasons why I joined the camera club – to get a more non-rail-centric view of not only my photography, but photography in general. I have learned quite a bit by being a member of the WPC, and I highly recommend it to any rail photographer that’s looking to expand his or her photographic abilities – if you can, join your local camera club. I think it’s well worth the time & money investment. It’s also fun to pick the brains of fellow photographers that don’t know, or care, about the difference between a GP38 and an SD40 (not saying that’s bad, but it is nice to get a different perspective from time to time).
Feel free to comment if you’d like.
Thanks!
-Tom
