Railroad Night Photography

In the Summer of 1979 I tried some night photography. I made a 50 foot cable to connect the flash to the camera. I would set up the camera at a good spot. I had the flash unit set up on another tripod. I would snap a picture. Move the flash to a new location. Reset the camera shutter without advancing the film and take another shot. I would repeat this process about five times for each picture. Each picture would take from 20 minutes to an hour to shoot.

Because I only had a 50 foot cable I could never get the camera far enough away from the engine to get a more natural composition. Also I had to be very careful moving the flash not to tug on the cable and move the camera or the resulting picture would be ruined. Here are the results of several hours of work taken at two locations trying to get a good picture in the middle of the night.

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