![Lake Lucille](BH-Lake-Lucille.jpg)
![Lake Lucille](BH-Lake-Lucille-FSB.jpg)
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- My internal alarm went off at 4:50 AM. “No,” I grumbled. “I don’t need to photograph this morning’s freight. I can post the Holbrook series instead. I will just go back to sleep.” But I couldn’t just go back to sleep. I knew this could be my last chance to photograph the train under a nearly full moon for awhile. So, at 5:05, I got out of bed, got dressed, grabbed my gear, headed out and arrived at the tracks right about 6:25. I contemplated a retake of yesterday’s shot with The Clock Tower but no train. I decided instead to go for Lake Lucille while it still has ice cover. I set myself up in an empty parking lot across the highway in a spot where I felt certain I would hear the whistle from at least a mile away, maybe even two or three. As I did not know if the train would arrive in five minutes, fifteen, half an hour, an hour or had maybe come early like it did yesterday and had already passed, I decided to keep Sancho on the ground, linked to my controller, until I heard the whistle. Then I would launch, frame the shot and let the engineer drive the train into it.
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- The only problem was the Frequent School Bus kept driving by. “I’m not here for the FSB!” I told myself. “I’m here for the train! After the train goes by, I can leave Sancho in the air for awhile and photograph the FSB.”
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- But it got to be too much. The FSB just kept rolling by. Finally, I decided to launch, get a shot or two of the FSB and then land and resume my wait to hear the whistle. I launched. The FSB came along. I ordered Sancho to take a snap. Immediately, the train silently rolled into sight. I had heard no whistle. Sancho was a little lower than I wanted Sancho to be for the train and I had only a few seconds to make Sancho climb, reframe the pic and shoot. Right after I did, I swung Sancho’s eye this way and that and realized there was a better picture to take than this one.
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- Tomorrow will be my last day here before I go north. The moon will have waned slightly. It will be higher in the sky. Do I shoot from this same basic scent - if sky is clear - or try another?
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Photographs courtesy of Bill Hess
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