note: following is I post I wrote quite a while back. I actually abandoned it and decided to forego the whole thing, but I find …
this was a +raven shoot. I’ve already told you she rocks. and she does. it ended up being a time crunch, so intern erik and …
c’mon ride the train
this was my first official shoot with +debra. she’s wonderful. thought you should know.
I loved how she ran the shoot. she gave the models guidance and emotions to work with. she had me position a model, then spend 5 minutes shooting from every possible angle. every. possible. angle. 360 degrees, vary heights and distances and angles. we climbed behind things and on things and on the outside of things
and over signs which said “do not climb.”the southeastern railroad museum is an amazing place. (there were buses, too.) check it out. I get lost in places like that. daydream fodder. romantic settings, people of every time period to populate them. backstories and dialogue to make them real. I look at the seats and think of the people who sat in them, their stories, their lives. soldiers, adventurers, families, lovers. I see the worn floors that so many pairs of feet trod. cattle car seating, cramped private rooms, relatively spacious sleepers. where were they going, or what were they leaving behind?
trains carry this weighty history of travel, of the united states during a time when trains were at first a wonder, a gateway to other parts of the country. of industry and cities and growth. and now they’re utilitarian. commuter workhorses, or shipping pathways which divide towns with their tracks. or relics in a museum. but maybe that’s just a perception. maybe back then trains were eventually taken for granted just as they are now. maybe it’s romantic because most things given enough timely distance become romanticized. regardless, they’re amazing.
you should go. really.