On June 23rd, 2018 Sis and I made an overnight road trip to Cane Ridge, Kentucky, which is the birthplace of the Disciples of Christ Church movement in the early 1800’s, which we belong to as do many others in our family.
It was interesting to see and walk around the grounds of the Cane Ridge Meeting house and to see how well the site has been preserved!
Below is a video I did from the morning session, I hope you all enjoy.
This past weekend my good friend Ryan Scott from the Ft. Branch, Indiana area and I set-out on a day-long trip to photograph trains between Princeton, Indiana and what started out to be Louisville, Ky, but turned out to be La Grange, Ky. Our plan was to meet up with a fellow railfan friend of ours from Facebook, Javid Beykzadeh. Little did I realize that I’d end up meeting several more friends from Facebook while we were at it including, Adam Hill, Josh Kellerman, and Erik Landrum.
The railfanning community is actually fairly large, if you take in the world and that’s pretty much what Facebook does for us. I have friends who are railfans from pretty much all over the world and it’s always cool to meetup in person in our travels in search of that perfect train picture!
All my family already know my obsession with trains and photographing them whenever I can. Even, my nieces and nephews know about my love for trains, and I hope that I’m passing some of that onto them, but I digress.
As railfan trips go, this was a really good one with Ryan and I photographing 5 different railroads before the day was over. Evansville Western Railway, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Indiana Southern Railway and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. As day road trips go for me railfanning, this was a really good one!
Other favorite photos of mine from our day-long trip are posted below.
June 9, 2018 – There’s just something about the lure of street running trains and when you throw in a BNSF War Bonnet, well, it makes it even better. Here we have a southbound CSX Q231-08 as begins to make it’s way through downtown La Grange toward Louisville, Ky.
June 9, 2018 Norfolk Southern Heritage Unit 8099, “Southern” passes the signal at milepost 209.8, at Jefferson Township, Indiana, as it makes its way west on the NS Southern-East District. This scheme is from the Southern Railway (GE) which originated as the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company in 1827. On Christmas Day, 1830, it put into service the nation’s first regularly scheduled steam passenger train, “The Best Friend of Charleston.” Southern was incorporated in 1894 from the reorganization and consolidation of numerous predecessors, and absorbed another 68 railroad companies over the next six years.
June 9, 2018 – Here we find a crew getting NS Heritage 8099, Southern Unit, ready for pickup by an, Duke Energy coal train, at the NS Yard Office in Princeton, Indiana, after storms passed through the area. We got lots of great photographs, which you’ll see over the days to come and also met-up with several fellow railfans in person that we’ve been friends with on Facebook for sometime!
June 9, 2018 Norfolk Southern Heritage Unit 8099, “Southern” passes the signal at milepost 209.8, at Jefferson Township, Indiana, as it makes its way west on the NS Southern-East District. This scheme is from the Southern Railway (GE) which originated as the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company in 1827. On Christmas Day, 1830, it put into service the nation’s first regularly scheduled steam passenger train, “The Best Friend of Charleston.” Southern was incorporated in 1894 from the reorganization and consolidation of numerous predecessors, and absorbed another 68 railroad companies over the next six years.
Well, as always, we’ve both been behind on doing our blog posts here!! It’s not that we haven’t been on roadtrips since September, but haven’t taken the time to write about them, so this post will cover a bit!!
My sister April and I both love to travel and even though we’ve been cutting back lately as we’re trying to save up for a trip to Europe in 2019 to visit with my nephew Brad and his family, who’s stationed in the Air Force in Germany. I lived in the Frankfurt, Germany area for 3 years when I was in the Air Force and made many, many more trips back to Europe on photo assignments after I left, until I retired from the Air Force in 1995. I haven’t been back since then and really looking forward to a return trip to some of my old stomping grounds, plus a few new spots I didn’t make it to, such as Ireland!
However, this post is about catching up so here goes!!!
In October we took my nephew Jayden (5-year-old Shutterbug Jayden) with us to the Fall Photography Weekend at Pennyrile Resort Park in Dawson Springs, Ky so he could participate in his first photography competition. Sis and I normally go every spring and fall and this year we’ve started taking one of the older kids; the fall was Jayden’s turn and he did outstanding in the kids division! There were about 10 or so kids this fall and one of his pictures won “Best in Show” for the division, and he also picked up a first and second place! We all were so proud of him!
The category he won Best in Show with was “Water,” where he shot a photograph of canoes being reflected in the water at the boat dock. His 2nd place winner was in the “Close-Up” category with a flower being eaten by bugs. We all had a great time, but I think he had the best, especially when they presented him with his “Best of Show” Trophy.
Next up will be Xavier when we attend the Spring Photography weekend in a few months.
Our next trip was via Amtrak to visit my niece and my sisters daughter, Chrystal. She works for the EPA there and we like to visit as often as we can. We took the train up, which of course is a favorite mode of travel in my book. The trip was pretty much centered around a concert by the group “Celtic Thunder” which we all three like a lot. We did a bit of other things such as the Christmas Market in downtown, but they both indulged me and my obsession for trains! The concert was great as was the market and other sights, but I enjoyed photographing and riding the trains of course.
Other than the trips above, I’ve been out and about photographing trains of course! I usually try to get out at least once or twice a week somewhere in the tri-state area! Sometimes I link up with fellow railfans such as Ryan Scott or William Crupper, but more often as not it’s me, the scanner and my cameras! Sis doesn’t usually ride along when I’m out chasing trains! She puts up with my obsession on trips, but that’s about it!
Another project I’ve been doing is a daily challenge where I shoot and post a black and white photo daily on my website and Facebook. Theme is pretty much anything I feel makes a good picture, which a lot of the time it ends up being the kids! I started this project as part of the week-long black and white challenge that was going around on Facebook this fall.
I enjoy doing something along these lines from time to time as it forces be to think outside the box and to keep looking for something that makes for what I feel is a good photograph in black and white. I really enjoy black and white photography and while I do one daily as part of my routine for posting train photos, I wanted something different. I think these days black and white photography kinda has been taking a backseat to photography. It seems that the world has been consumed more by color with the advent of the smart phones. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still other folks shooting black and white, but I don’t think there’s as many as there used to be.
This March sis and I are back to Chicago for another concert and to visit Chrystal. This time we’re going to listen to a group called “The High Kings” at the City Winery Chicago. Again we are going up on the train and I’m looking forward to going up in a bit nicer weather than our December trip!
Then in May I’ll be headed to Monticello Railway Museum in Monticello, Illinois with fellow railfans Ryan Scott and Bryan Burton for Southern Rail Productions photography charter with Southern Railway No. 401. This should be a fun trip and we all three are looking forward to the trip.
Today’s roadtrip was a very short one… to church! Of course we do this every week on Sunday and we almost always take some of the little ones with us, unless they’re tied up in their busy schedules! LOL
I run the video camera equipment at First Christian Church in Madisonville, Ky and today was a busy morning as we had a lot going on with a congregational meeting afterwards, but I’m getting a little off topic here.
The audiovisual/sound platform is at the rear of the sanctuary and has several steps leading up to where the camera and sound gear are setup. I was doing my thing after the Children’s Moments, where I position the video camera for choir’s anthem, when I feel this tugging on my pants! I pivot around and look down to find Elaina looking up at me with her lips puckered and eyes wide open waiting for a kiss! Of course I obliged and then she throws in a hug for good measure before turning and bounding off to her Worship and Wonder class. Talk about making my day!
For most of my nieces/nephews and great nieces and nephews I was off on roadtrips traveling the world with the Air Force while they were growing up. I’d get to see them when I came home on leave (vacation), but it’s not the same thing.
Now most of them have kids of their own and I’m loving the fact that I’m here as they’re growing up and doing things that I unfortunately missed out on with their parents and grandparents. I know they all get tired of me taking their pictures sometimes, but thankfully they put up with it. I try to make sure to balance between the shooting of photos and participating. I didn’t get a shot of today’s moment with Elaina, but it is embedded in my memory for all time!
Moments like this make life wonderful! I look forward to many more with all the “littles” in my life these days!
Kids and Photography… (hang in there, the roadtrip part is toward the end of this post). With the advent of digital photography being in the hands of just about everyone via smart phones, tablets and digital cameras, the world of photography is in the hands of many kids starting at an early age. I personally have been photographing most of my nieces and nephews since the day they were born, even more so for their kids and their kids kids. As a result the youngest ones, my great-greats, started reaching for my camera or smart phone from a very early age.
About a year ago I started a project with my oldest little ones and photography. I decided that, once they turned four years old, I was going to get a camera that they could use and start taking them on photography adventures where I’d go with them in a one-on-one situation. It’s been a wonderful trip with the three oldest among my great-great nieces and nephews that live in my area. Going out shooting with them and seeing the world from their viewpoint has been a blast.
I started the three of them out sharing a Fuji Wide Instax, a Polaroid type instant camera. I wanted to have them use something that would give them a tangible print that they could hold in their hand and watch develop, much like many of us older folk did when we were kids. I feel that has helped them enjoy shooting photos more. I also got each of them a photo album to keep their pictures in so they can share them with family and friends. All three of the boys, Xavier, Jayden, and Damion have moved on to shooting a digital camera lately.
Now, the instant camera is in reserve for our next young photographer, Elaina, who turns four in July. Damion, her brother, still wants to shoot with the instant camera sometimes, but at $1 per photo I’ve decided to move him and the others more into the digital realm. This way they can zoom and take as many photos as they want. I just make sure and get 4×6 prints of the best of the photos they shoot by the next day and give them to them for their photo books. I really can’t stress too much how important I feel this is. For the young photographer to have an album to thumb through, to relive and to share his or her adventures in taking the photos is very important. If the image sits on the camera, which they need to have adult supervision when using, or on a laptop that they can’t use without an adult, it’s hard for them to go back and look at their pictures whenever they want to. I feel having easy access is a very important part of their growth in this visual world!
Now, they are 4-5 years old and, with this in mind, I didn’t want to start them out on a expensive digital point and shoot camera. I’ve worked with them on handling the camera carefully and to keep the camera strap around their neck when they use it and they all three do a good job, but still, they are kids!
I shopped around our local pawn shops and found a lightweight Fuji camera, with a viewfinder and LCD screen, they could use that wasn’t real expensive. I wanted the viewfinder as that’s what they were used to with the Instax camera. I paid $50 for a Fuji FinePix S4250 which is a 14mp camera with a 24x optical zoom. It only weighs a pound and is just the right fit for small hands! They’ve been using it for about six months now and it’s still working great, with limited drops! I just looked yesterday at a local pawn shop and they had one just like it for $30. I think if you shop around you can find something in the same price range.
I’ve been showing the kids copies of the pictures I shoot of them, pretty much their whole lives, so they’ve been exposed to what I consider photos with good composition for sometime. On the shooting and direction aspect of kids shooting photos at a young age, I’ve not tried to guide them a whole lot when it comes to composing their photos. Occasionally I might recommend they move in a little closer or perhaps stand in a different spot but, for the most part, I don’t look over their shoulder, point the camera for them and tell them when to press the shutter. I feel if I do that, it’s not really their picture they’re shooting. Do they always come back with what I think might have been the best photo? No, of course not, none of us do when we first start out in photography and many of us still don’t even after doing it for 40+ years, like myself!
As their photo editor (haven’t started the post production with them yet) I do occasionally crop their photos (digital) and make other minor corrections in editing, but for the most part the photos they shoot are theirs, the way they saw them.
And, now, the Roadtrip…. Recently my sister, April, and I took Damion with us to the Spring Photography Weekend at Pennyrile Forest State Resort Park in Dawson Springs, Ky, for his first photography competition in the children’s division. We all three had a blast! We’re planning to take Jayden to the Fall weekend there and then Xavier next Spring for their first “competition.” Getting the kids out shooting where other kids are involved I think is just another step in their adventure with photography.
Damion loved exploring and capturing photos along the way during the weekend. He told us that he hoped he’d win a trophy and he did!! First place in the landscape category and a third place in the water category! Not sure who was prouder, him or us! What he referred to as “Secret Caves,” were among his favorite spots, along with the waterfall, and his “Secret Steps” which is the photo that won him his first place trophy. I love the fresh viewpoint that the young kids have with their photography.
Where do I hope the kids go with this photography thing? Well, my hope mostly is that they have a love for photography and the world it opens for them. So, when to start your young photographer out? I personally picked 4 years old, but you can start them whenever you feel they are old enough so that you can communicate with them, when they can understand and follow simple directions. So that you can converse with them and they can understand you and you them!
Below are Damions two winning images from his first photo competition.
If you’d like to follow the Shutterbug Kids, they have their own Website, Facebook and Instagram pages all maintained by me, their uncle Jimmy. Below are links to each of them. The boys aren’t directly involved with the social media aspect yet, although they do ask if I’m going to put their picture on Facebook sometimes, so they are aware. That lesson will have to wait a few years, but they really enjoy seeing their pictures online.
Damion
Jayden
Xavier
In closing, get out with your little ones, make memories and capture them together! You’ll be happy you did and they will as well!