Steam & Excursion > Railfans 100 Years Ago

Gerry Best and friends photograph DL&W's Lackawanna Limited, train no. 3, a few miles east of Binghamton, N.Y. in 1915.

Art House

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That is awesome.   Love the standing on the fence.  

What became of Mr. Best's photo collection?

Guy on the left looks like a time traveler with an iPhone.  Seriously though, what kind of camera was there in 1915 that allowed you to see what you were shooting with the camera held away from and slightly above your head like that?

Something about that scene doesn't make sense. Maybe it's just me but, I don't get any sense of movement, i.e. is the train stopped?

Good observation he really does look like he's using a phone camera. I doubt there was any camera back then that allowed you to shoot like that and see what you were shooting, he's probably just shooting in the blind to get more elevation. Before digital and I had my old film SLR I would sometimes shoot blind like that, if you've got a good eye for elevation and angle and are steady on your feet it does work.

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
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> Guy on the left looks like a time traveler with an
> iPhone.  Seriously though, what kind of camera
> was there in 1915 that allowed you to see what you
> were shooting with the camera held away from and
> slightly above your head like that?

Holding the camera overhead and hoping for the best was how I got this photo of Sovier Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev at San Luis Obispo back in 1959.  This was Comrade Khrushchev's visit to the US West Coast where he wasn't allow to visit Disneyland.  SP ran a special train as a section of the westboun Daylight, and when they stopped for crew change and servicing in SLO, the boss man from the Kremlin decided to get some fresh air and stretch his legs.  Even though the Cold War was approaching single digits on the Kelvin scale, the crowd seemed to be more curious than hostile.

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I can't remember who is who in this photo, but the story was the gentleman on the fence tumbled off a split second after this photo was taken.