And now for part II of my Railfan & Railroad’s Spring TRAINing review – the night photo session (part I, covering the daytime stuff, is here if you’re curious). As most of you may know, I’ve done quite a bit of shooting at night, both individually and as a part of a group. But this was the first time I experienced this type of night shoot – on two different fronts.
The night shoot was put on by Lerro Productions, who does things a bit differently than the typical Lumedyne type night shoot. Instead of using flash for illumination, Pete Lerro and his crew use constant lighting, along with smoke sticks to simulate the steam of the locomotive, bringing it to life for a bit. There are a couple advantages to doing things this way – first, you can use shorter exposures, and second, you can accomodate larger crowds since people are not relying on the light guy to light things up. Each scene is set up for about 10-20 minutes where photographers are free to roam around and get different angles. A pretty neat way to do things. And there was also a short segment at the end where Steve Barry of R&R ran a more traditional strobe lit shot at the other end of the equipment (featuring Steamtown’s Nickel Plate GP9), which was a nice way to end the evening.
But I mentioned two different different things about this type of shoot in the intro – the second being I wasn’t running it! Yep, I could actually concentrate on the photos, and not have to worry about time schedules, moving equipment, getting actors together, and all the other things that go along with running a shoot. The calm winds and clear skies also helped things as well. Overall the shoot was enjoyable – different, but enjoyable.
All in all, I’d give the whole event a B+ to an A-. A very enjoyable event with only a few minor places for improvement – I’d recommend those who didn’t attend this year to put it on your calendar for next year when R&R announces the date.
So here’s the photos – starting from when we got back from Wegmans, to the end of the night with Steve’s Alien Bees.
[cpg_album:848]Thanks for looking!
Tom
