Alaska Railroad Photographs

Last week, a most accomplished friend in literary and visual are left a comment on a photo I had been kind of pleased to have taken. That photo had not been a great enough challenge for me, he stated. No train photo of mine that didn’t include a school bus and a fast food joint in the same frame was worthy of my efforts. As noted, he is a man who knows about these kind of things. I take him seriously. So, on this night, I sent Sancho up to shoot a still to include three fast food joints: Dairy Queen, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut and then see if the Frequent School Bus might just happen to roll into the frame at the right moment. Timing on any moving subject is always tricky with Sancho, due to the bad shutter delay DJI did not deal deal with when they designing the Mavic 2 Pro. Punch the shutter too soon and the front of the engine is father back than you want it and the power is drained out of it. Too late and even if it looked perfect when you punched the shutter and the locomotive can roll partially or completely out of the frame before the image is recorded. My time was perfect - but instead of the fake shutter noises I expected, got the “video on” beep. I gave in and shot this short video. I thought about having Sancho chase the train down the track, but I’m not comfortable doing that where there are condos, wires and trees to smack into.

Photograph courtesy of Bill Hess