Here is the challenge: catch an expresso picture with your 'average' digital camera. I usually get the buck end of a bad crate. Trains are moving targets for a freelance 'fake-it' Photographer. You really just want the train to stop, pose for your picture and then fast-forward. Well, that's never going to happen. So, I picked up a passion to drive to 'dead-ends' where tracks are never used, old train cars sit rusting and weeds are the secondary attraction.
Same goes for airplanes. Unless they are docked Float Planes or sitting lifeless at the Airport, there is not much my camera is capable of...well, much I AM CAPABLE OF. 'REMEMBER, I DID NOT READ THE GUIDE!' as noted in BLOG ONE of many blogs. I did get the entire plane in 'once' as it flew 1,000's of feet over my head. I even had my camera on FULL THROTTLE ZOOM..but, the outcome was as tragic as 3 engines failing. One 'Click' and the horrid picture is gone!
As a child, I always wanted to 'jump' a train and be a stow-away on FLIGHT 007. You watch those old black and whites of raggedy boys with wooden poles and a knotted cloth with 'their life belongings' walking down the the empty tracks ... lost and usually alone (but I would have a super dog with me like Lassie). It reminds me of that movie STAND BY ME: 4 childhood pals looking for a dead body by following the train tracks. There's just something very mystical about TRAIN TRACKS.
Planes..ugh..I'm not as excited when it comes to planes. Okay, I would like to jump out of one. That's on my BUCKET LIST of things to do. You're so helpless up in a plane. I mean really, what can you do if a fire breaks out! Your life is in ONE MAN'S HANDS ... NO CONTROL, NO OPTIONS, NO MEETING AT THE PUB TO DISCUSS IT, NO SECOND CHANCES ... At least on a train you can jump and roll. Or, you could straddle the top of the train and shimmy down to the other end where the fire is not destroying your holiday plans.
I was told that our huge 747 was diving towards the middle of the Pacific en route to Hawaii. I think I was about six. My father told me everyone was using barf bags, dead silent, praying or screaming. All I remember was how cool it was to be on a big plane for the first time! He said I was 'the only one on the plane who didn't know our lives were about to end'. And for this, I am grateful. It all turned out okay and obviously the pilot did something right.
I don't think Train Conductors get the respect that Pilots do. Well, they don't. I can only think of Petticoat Junction with men in striped over-alls with twang accents. At least they had personality and didn't seem to get all 'antsy' about a great train robbery. I guess they expect one or two during their lifetime.
Pilots just have that sleaze factor: "I just did every stewardess on this flight and I've still got my WINGS!".
I'm on team 'Conductor'.
Great and wondrous movies have come from using the TRAIN or the AIRPLANE as the key character..I mean look at them... 'Snakes on a Plane' (how exciting was that..poisonous snakes loose while you're above the clouds AND you have NO ANTI-VENOM to save you!) and 'MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS'- eclectic group of killers in a 'who done it?' racing at amazing speeds. Then you have the 'POLAR EXPRESS', just gobs of fun going to the NORTH POLE on a magical train and of course 'LOST- the T.V. series' where the plane becomes pivotal to disappearing islands and pilots getting sucked up by black fog. I know, it just makes you want to buy the next GOLDEN TICKET!
Put a penny on the track and wait for it to be flattened. Remember that? Now they have machines you can just put your penny into it and churn out a flat penny...HOW UNCREATIVE IS THAT? The whole point is to have the train 'personally' flatten your penny while you watch. It was something most little boys dreamed of!
My only big bitch about airplanes and trains is the HORRORS of migrating animals being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know what I'm talking about! Those caribou just 'doing their migratory' thing and
BOOM..EXPRESS TRAIN 88 just churns out a bucket load of steaks. And those hard working SNOW GEESE, 
patterned in the perfected 'V' SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK..right into the propellers. It's a DAVID SUZUKI NIGHTMARE!
I'd like to say I had amazing train sets and built model airplanes as a child but, as noted in 'yet another blog', I was into FARMING.
I built farms and baled hay, sheds for the pigs and coops for the hens. I was not into inhaling crazy glue or playing with electrical machinary. I was a true 'down to earth' child who dreamed of manure and birthing a calf.
So, I'm not as excited with my camera when trains and planes are around. I'd rather be at an old farm with my camera, just chewing on a piece of hay with cuds on slow mo and watching reality unfold slowly. Yup, I'd rather be a Farmer than a Pilot or a Conductor. Either way, I still have my camera.
Here is the challenge: catch an expresso picture with your 'average' digital camera. I usually get the buck end of a bad crate. Trains are moving targets for a freelance 'fake-it' Photographer. You really just want the train to stop, pose for your picture and then fast-forward. Well, that's never going to happen. So, I picked up a passion to drive to 'dead-ends' where tracks are never used, old train cars sit rusting and weeds are the secondary attraction.
As a child, I always wanted to 'jump' a train and be a stow-away on FLIGHT 007. You watch those old black and whites of raggedy boys with wooden poles and a knotted cloth with 'their life belongings' walking down the the empty tracks ... lost and usually alone (but I would have a super dog with me like Lassie). It reminds me of that movie STAND BY ME: 4 childhood pals looking for a dead body by following the train tracks. There's just something very mystical about TRAIN TRACKS.
Planes..ugh..I'm not as excited when it comes to planes. Okay, I would like to jump out of one. That's on my BUCKET LIST of things to do. You're so helpless up in a plane. I mean really, what can you do if a fire breaks out! Your life is in ONE MAN'S HANDS ... NO CONTROL, NO OPTIONS, NO MEETING AT THE PUB TO DISCUSS IT, NO SECOND CHANCES ... At least on a train you can jump and roll. Or, you could straddle the top of the train and shimmy down to the other end where the fire is not destroying your holiday plans.
I was told that our huge 747 was diving towards the middle of the Pacific en route to Hawaii. I think I was about six. My father told me everyone was using barf bags, dead silent, praying or screaming. All I remember was how cool it was to be on a big plane for the first time! He said I was 'the only one on the plane who didn't know our lives were about to end'. And for this, I am grateful. It all turned out okay and obviously the pilot did something right.
I don't think Train Conductors get the respect that Pilots do. Well, they don't. I can only think of Petticoat Junction with men in striped over-alls with twang accents. At least they had personality and didn't seem to get all 'antsy' about a great train robbery. I guess they expect one or two during their lifetime.
Pilots just have that sleaze factor:
I'm on team 'Conductor'.
Great and wondrous movies have come from using the TRAIN or the AIRPLANE as the key character..I mean look at them... 'Snakes on a Plane' (how exciting was that..poisonous snakes loose while you're above the clouds AND you have NO ANTI-VENOM to save you!) and 'MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS'- eclectic group of killers in a 'who done it?' racing at amazing speeds. Then you have the 'POLAR EXPRESS', just gobs of fun going to the NORTH POLE on a magical train and of course 'LOST- the T.V. series' where the plane becomes pivotal to disappearing islands and pilots getting sucked up by black fog. I know, it just makes you want to buy the next GOLDEN TICKET!
My only big bitch about airplanes and trains is the HORRORS of migrating animals being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know what I'm talking about! Those caribou just 'doing their migratory' thing and BOOM..EXPRESS TRAIN 88 just churns out a bucket load of steaks. And those hard working SNOW GEESE, 
patterned in the perfected 'V' SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK..right into the propellers. It's a DAVID SUZUKI NIGHTMARE!
So, I'm not as excited with my camera when trains and planes are around. I'd rather be at an old farm with my camera, just chewing on a piece of hay with cuds on slow mo and watching reality unfold slowly. Yup, I'd rather be a Farmer than a Pilot or a Conductor. Either way, I still have my camera.
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