Locomotive Exhaust

Exploring the countryside on a cool evening in May under starry skies, we found a BNSF freight train getting a new crew on the siding in Shabbona, IL. Opting for the dark side of the train allowed this view, as the exhaust pouring from the GEs was back lit by a few bright sodium vapor lights at the local self-storage garages. With a new crew aboard looking at green signals to Eola, the new engineer on board has just begun to notch up the throttle in preparation of a quick trip east under starry skies.

I suppose I should also explain my star ‘trick’ here, again, since I used it in this photo. I had the idea from reading a blog post on Strobist, and from the awesome comet photo referenced in the post by John Moran. You may notice on Strobist it was mentioned that he used a soft focus filter to cause the stars to glow around their center. This gave me an idea. And, since I lack a soft focus filter, or any filters actually, I would have to make up for it in Photoshop. I use the smudge tool, on the lighten setting at 50%, and smudge around each star, usually just making one circle around each bright one, to bring them out a bit. I think it works wonders on these starry nights.

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