Nostalgia & History > Every Railfan Begins Somewhere

It was December of 1966, and I had just received a Minoltina (Yes, that is the correct spelling.) 35mm rangefinder camera for Christmas. I knew very, very little about backlighting, badly underexposing, going out on days that weren't grubby, etc. Over the years I've come to appreciate the finer aspects of photography, but then I was fearless. None of these three slides from December 1966 could be shown in a slide show today, but thankfully with the help of Lightroom 5 and Photoshop Elements 11, these images are at least acceptable.
Image one: A&BB 28 and another A&BB Baldwin sun themselves outside the A&BB enginehouse in Barberton, Ohio.
Image two: AC&Y 503 (an FM H-20-44) endcab roadswitcher's cab peers back at us from the AC&Y's engine facility in Akron, Ohio on this grubby day. Notice the blanked-off lower cab window on the left.
Image three: On that same visit to the AC&Y, AC&Y 202 waits for a train while other FM's populate the enginehouse area.
Before you pitch those old seconds, give modern technology a try. You might be surprised.
Bob

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I'm not from that neck of the woods. What is A&BB? Thanks!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/14 17:00 by rrpreservation.

rrpreservation Wrote:
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> I'm not from that neck of the woods. What is A&BB?
> Thanks!


Akron and Barberton Belt. Now I believe a part of the W&LE in the Akron Area, and perhaps renamed the Akron and Barberton Cluster? Ben

Great shots/saves! Really like to see any of those FM 's in their native habitat.

Yo Bob! Hey, I'll stay faithful to your main thread theme (& title). You're right about a young railfan being totally fearless in pointing a camera. As I grew up reading the model RR & later pure railfanning magazines I became more & more aware of the photography that was needed for articles & content. I suppose I had a passing interest in where these photos came from, but the thought of ME taking pictures that good? HUH!! I remember when I finally broke through that early mental 'barrier' I became so excited at the thought that I (lil old ME??!!) could actually be taking 'train pictures'. Early on I would shoot ANY old thing. Lighting didn't mean a thing. Composition: What's that?!! I took scads of horrible, yes, 126 Instamatic pictures. The only saving grace in that early debacle was that I had been steered into shooting slides.

Like yours does, I'm sure my version of your confessional speaks for 100s of railfans that surely have similar beginnings. A few years into my more advanced railfan photography career I weeded out dozens of those horrific early slides. They're now permanent land-fill material. But after seeing your success with this 'Photoshop resurrection' I wonder how much redeemable material I threw out way back then. (sigh...)

Lance



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/14 06:23 by santafe199.

Thanks for the comments. For all of you who haven't thrown out those "seconds" and early shots, give modern technology a try. Your images might surprise you.
Bob