Railroad steam locomotives at work

[THE OLD MACHINIST]

Steam locomotives have fascinated onlookers since they were invented. The sights and sounds of a working locomotive are hard to ignore. I have been photographing working steam locomotives for many years and I am pleased to share images I have made in the past several years. I am new to image editing and I invite comments and constructive criticism of these recently edited images.
The Old Machinist

[zen]

Hello OM, and welcome!

May I first suggest you add your first name and location on your profile so we can communicate in a more friendly manner. Just clik on the Your Profile button and go!

Many of us on this site love the old puffer bellys, and look forward to as many as you'd like to post. Others will have more suggestions, but I think this shot is nice. I'm curious, though, about what it might look like in b&w. If your software allows it, why not try a conversion? If you don't like it, no loss.

Thanks for sharing.

Zen

[Mike Buckley]

Welcome to CiC!

I really like that your image includes the depot and the people. Including that information tells a really nice story.

Consider cropping at the bottom to eliminate most of the foreground material. Also consider cropping to eliminate the green sign on the left unless that's a particularly important bit of information to people who know about trains (I don't). Otherwise, that sign is a distraction that pulls the viewer's eye to the left and out of the frame.

Perhaps most important, the image seems underexposed to me and the histogram confirms my thinking about that. If you're not familiar with how to use the histogram as a guide to exposing images, there is lots of good information on the Internet about that. Relative to that, notice that the shadow areas reveal absolutely no detail. If the image had been properly exposed at the time of capture, you probably would have been able to adjust the shadow areas during post-processing to show more detail and it might have been possible to reveal those details without making any post-processing adjustments to those areas.

[Wandjina]

Hi OM.
I'm probably the "cropping nazi." I like to see things cropped quite hard to remove distractions.
I like your photo, but I would like to see anything that distracts my eye from the main object removed.
So I would try cropping the left hand side to remove that green thing and the end of the carriage that is in shadow. I would leave the two red carriages in sunlight. I would crop the right hand side to remove the telegraph pole and the cross beam at the top of the pole. Then I would crop from the top to remove half the sky.

That would prune out some of the distractions and let the eye focus on the locomotive.
Those are just my thoughts

[MrB]

For the image you have presented here, I would agree with cropping out the green sign on the left. Although the exposure is low it should be possible to brighten up the image, and you might even find, when working on your original file, that there is a bit of detail in the shadow areas.



We all see things differently and, in composing the shot, I would have preferred to go wider for the foreground and the right hand side (if that were possible, of course), to include a bit more of the tracks and the whole of the station building - they give the context to title of your post.

Cheers.
Philip

[bnnrcn]

Welcome OM Very nice image and I agree with Mike's crop suggestion .

[Geoff F]

My first thoughts have already been mentioned. Crop a little from the left side. I think I would split the balancing crop between both top and bottom.

On the far right side there is a pole which is at an angle but everything else seems vertical so I assume this must be a bit of 'natural misalignment' so I would probably leave it alone.

[IzzieK]

Martin has already said what I was thinking of when I first saw your image, so +1 to his comments...otherwise, a very nice nostalgic scene. I would convert this one to monochrome (sepia) for a change of view but leave the original in this original post for comparison...

[John 2]

Welcome to CIC. My thought have already been expressed but It's nice to see someone else who enjoys photographing old steam locomotives. Lets see some more.

[THE OLD MACHINIST]

Hello,
I have re-edited this image with your suggestions in mind.. I thank you all for your suggestions.
Mel Johnson

[THE OLD MACHINIST]

Hello,
I have re-edited the image.
Mel Johnson

[Cantab]

Hello,
I have re-edited this image with your suggestions in mind.. I thank you all for your suggestions.
Mel Johnson

Mel, I like this image. It has a sense of dark power.

[Shadowman]

Nice captures.

[IzzieK]

I like the first edit for the mood of it...Great! The second one seems to be the "standard" shot with people at the station waiting to board it...John (2) has some good ones too in some of his posts before...so you have a fan here of those huge locomotives...I am content with playing with my scale ones...

[THE OLD MACHINIST]

Izzie,
I model the pre-1930 Union Pacific Railroad in HO scale.
Mel

[THE OLD MACHINIST]

Hello,
This is an image of a modern successor to the steam locomotive. It is shown working on a portion of the original 1869 transcontinental railroad, located in the state of Utah. I have aggressively cropped the image to capture the feeling of a powerful and fleeting moment.
I have also altered the color balance. I will appreciate comments about the viewers perception of the color rendering.
Mel

[MrB]

It would seem likely that the original colours of the scene would be preferable.

Cheers.
Philip

[IzzieK]

Too much yellow...I think...did you colour correct this? Is this also an HO scale...??