Tiny Trains

I have always been fascinated with model railroads. When I was a young child I received as a gift an "N" scale train from my parents. The track when set-up only ran the train around a small oval. In fact so small I couldn't even run the engine it at it's highest speed because when circling with it's two cars it would fly off the track! Regardless, I must have watched the train go around that circle for hours. Such is the simple fun of my childhood.

My uncle had a model train set. It was a much larger scale. He spent hours and days setting up and fine tuning his track. Like photography is my Hobby, train building and running was his. When we visited, which was quite often, I always loved to go downstairs and have him turn it on. I was fascinated with the world that he created and how much time and car was put into it's design. Even then when he would take me and my cousin to the hobby store and look at his next purchases how much money a single engine was. I knew nothing of the history of trains. The method of propulsion; electric vs steam vs whatever. I just knew that they were cool! I was never old enough to run his trains, well at least he never trusted me. As I look back I don't remember them running without a hitch very often either. There was always some breakdown to something that didn't work right.

My Grandfather had an "H" scale train. His first love was photography, but for a period of time he built and maintained an older "steam" engine on a board enclosed in it's little world. I and my 15 cousins would have the run of the house. Fascinating and wonderful house it was. He lived and owned the old school house were my mom and her sisters went to school. when they built the multi-room schoolhouse they closed all the one-room school houses down. There was old desks, books, clocks and just about anything you can imagine. In one room, locked upstairs was a train set. One of my cousins was to get it when Grandpa got too old or past away. Nobody got it. It burned down, the train along with 40,000 slides gone.

People who follow this blog know my love for the Botanic Gardens. I go as often as I can. Amongst all the flowers, greenhouses, lakes and rivers is a train exhibit. It changes every year. They usually celebrate the National Parks of the US. Many of those parks I've been to, so I get to look at a little tiny version of the park that I have seen the full-scale of and watch train churn it's way through the countryside. There are volunteers there to discuss most anything you might want to. I believe the size of the Trains are known as "Garden Scale" There big is what I know.

Some of the later pictures taken by my normal VAL are of me in full gear. Some have asked how I carry my equipment when I'm out in the field. I've used a number of pieces of equipment on the past, but I have settled with what I started with the Kinesis Gear system. There are a number of pieces and you can spot me in them. When you look through the pictures you can see that Kate has captured my better side.

I have already blog about my picture of Buddy earlier. Though I do own a tripod and use it often, I just like grabbing my camera for the most part, framing a shot and keeping in motion. I know and have experienced how much better a picture is with a tripod, but continue to not learn this simple fact. Photographs are better when the camera isn't moving.

Despite this purchasing the D3 has helped me freeze action. When you can crank that ISO up to 3200 or even 6400 and it is pretty noise free, you can get those shutter speeds up and make your own pictures that much more sharp while hand holding.

The train shots in many I was trying to capture the sense of speed that the trains move around the track. Please let me know if I succeeded. To me they just look like OOF pictures.

As always thanks for looking and please comment either at Smugmug or below in my comments section.

The pictures can be found here.

A slide show of the pictures can be view here.

Why, Such a Camera!

With apologies to my wife for such a poor title. I get asked this question quite often: Wow, that's a big camera... are you a pro? Although I have spent much of my lifetime trying to take better pictures, I am indeed not a pro. But, I do like cameras. Today's camera makes taking pictures much easier than in past years. Truth be told, I spend far too much money on the cameras I choose to purchase. It is my guilty habit. As men, we all have them. I discussed in a past entry about the X-Chromosome; well, for some reason, having a Y-Chromosome means many things, like enjoying beer, grilling and a dependency on purchasing expensive electronic devices.

As habits go, mine is very bad, but (as I justify to myself) I don't watch much TV, I don't drink much, my best cooking is still at home and I don't feel the need to go and purchase a fast car. (Well not yet.. upon reaching 40 last year that desire for a convertible is gaining strength. I mean, we only go once don't we?)

I do like cameras though, and all of the toys that go along with them. A camera though, unlike many items, has a life... it takes things for memories sake. A picture is worth a thousand words they say and for me that's a small amount.

Above is a picture of my son. I almost always call him Buddy. Here we are at the Botanic Gardens. When some people see this, they may think something like "That is a nice picture." But what I remember is how he patiently stood there and did his best at posing. You see, standing still has not been his strong suit, but he has gotten so much better. His sister, Punkin... (yes with an "n" and not an "mp". Unlike where the link will take you I would never chuck her!) She wouldn't allow me to take the picture with her in it. She was upset about something or another that she wanted to do, but Buddy just stood there, smiled at the voice activated light stand (Kate) and couldn't have been more happy.
Now some may think that I could have taken this with just any camera, but truth is that I couldn't, it is taken at ISO 12,800! Try that with your point and shoot. The camera and the technology does the heavy lifting here, it's a D3. I couldn't have gotten this shot or this memory with any other camera.

I now share with you a nice Lego structure courtesy of Punkin. What I remember about this series is how carefully she put all of these together and presented it to me in it's finished form carefully displaying it on my desk. She said, "Daddy can we take a picture?" I of course was in the middle of work, trying to multi-task and be superdad as well as a world class employee, on these days it always seems as if my children get the short end of the stick. I wish I made different choices, and sometimes I do, but today I didn't. I put her off, I asked her to wait. Later in the day and true to my promise I went to take pictures of the wonderful looking and daintily built structure. I could have just popped a picture with any camera, but wanted something worthy of the art that my daughter crafted and this, of course, again meant using that same D3. I mean she made it herself didn't she?

As I started carefully moving the structure one of the walls collapsed and was now detached from the rest of the building. Then as I went to repair that, well the other side fell over and then next thing I knew the whole top had caved in onto itself and I was left looking at no longer a world class abstract art piece worthy of some placement in front of a City Center, Bank or Museum, but 4 clumps that I had no clue how to put back together. Well what is a father to do in this moment when he has made a promise and now can't fulfill it? Pile it up on his desk and announce that it was time to eat lunch and hope she will forget! So as we are plowing through our bologna sandwiches, drinking our milk and eating a wonderful tasting and somewhat healthy Sun Chip, she leans over and announces to me and Buddy. "Heh Daddy let's go and take some picture of my building!" Now in a moment of weakness and not wanting to disappoint my daughter - who I love dearly - I thought, "Well I can blame it on Buddy, since he can't talk very well he can't quite deny convincingly enough that he didn't do it!" Then I got ahold of myself and realized that I had to set an example. I carefully looked at my daughter and with all of the guilt that I truly felt told her that, "We had a problem." In my head I kept hearing Tom Hanks utter the infamous "Houston" before it. For me it was along the same degree of problem as NASA had. We left the kitchen table to show her the rubble that I had created and as we started walking up the stairs I started to explain to her what had happened. I went into detail to show her how upset I was that I couldn't put it all together so we could get a picture. As I arrived in my office I sat in my chair and picked up the many pieces of the "building" I was waiting for the blow back as I had let my daughter down. Punkin picked up the pieces, jumped into my lap and gave me a big hug, she told me, "That's OK Daddy, I can put it back together." She also let me know that despite my wanton disregard for her art that, " I still love you." She kept hugging me for quite some time. She told me after a bit that she had the same thing happen when she tried to build it and that I had to be careful because it was very delicate. She also reassured me that she could get it back together so we could get a picture.

As you see from the pictures she got it back together and I attended to capturing this piece of art for posterity. Captured at ISO 6400 with available light which only the D3 could do. So while some might only see the cost, I grab onto the memories of that "shot that almost wasn't" and the daughter who made it so easy to tell that "superdad" IS only human.