December 11, 2017 – Day 42 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge – Ballet – My niece Elaina is taking ballet and once a month they have an open session where parents and family can watch from the doorway and behind a window. Today was the day and this is my favorite moment of her! This was her poise… no prompting. Of course, I’ve been photographing her since the day she was born so she’s quite used to having her picture taken.
December 10, 2017 – Day 41 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge – Mother and Child – This is my niece and her son. What’s to say other than there’s a lot of love going on in this photograph. To capture moments like this in your daily life, you have to be quick to capture “the moment.”
December 9, 2017 – Day 40 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge – Railfan – A railfan runs for his car as our Amtrak train departs the station. Diagonal lines can help make for a more interesting photograph. Actually, any repeating pattern can help add to the dynamics of your photo.
December 8, 2017 – Day 39 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge – Arriving – A Chicago Transit Authority train pulls into the Clark Street “L” station. When photographing a scene use leading lines to help draw interest to the subject of your photograph. It will make for a stronger picture!
December 7, 2017 – As the cold December wind whips through the downtown canyon of buildings, two opposing Chicago Transit Authority trains meet at the Clark/Lake Station on the downtown loop elevated track (L), as they pickup and drop off their passengers before heading off to their next station stops. The oldest sections of the Chicago “L” started operations in 1892, making it the second-oldest rapid transit system in the Americas, after New York City’s elevated lines. The Chicago “L” (short for “elevated”) is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). It is the fourth-largest rapid transit system in the United States in terms of total route length, at 224.1 miles long and the second-busiest rail mass transit system in the United States, after the New York City Subway.
December 7, 2017 – Day 37 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge – The “L” – Two Chicago Transit Authority trains meet at the Clark/State Street Station in Downtown Chicago, Illinois. Shooting with a iPhone in large downtown city area with a lot of light can produce some nice photographs. The key is to keep your iPhone steady as if you are shooting with a digital camera, after all that is what it is. #iphone7plus #iphonephotography #jimpearsonphotography
December 6, 2017 – Amtrak train 360, the Saluki, pulls into the station at Carbondale, Illinois with a relatively new Siemens Charger SC-44 locomotive 4618 as power for the trip to Chicago.The SC-44 came off the assembly line on November 16, 2017.
December 6, 2017 – Day 36 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge – All Aboard – Today’s photo is one of many from my trip to Chicago, Illinois today. I made a point on this trip to challenge myself to do a series of photographs called “My view from Amtrak 360” which I shared a link to here on my Facebook page yesterday, if you’d like to see more from the trip. All were shot with the iPhone 7 Plus. #iphone7plus #iphonephotography #jimpearsonphotography
December 5, 2017 – Day 36 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge: Where’s the Lampshades? – You never know where you’re going to find an interesting photo!! Tonight, I was wandering around in J.C. Penny’s waiting on my sister when I spotted this display of legs! It screamed black and white to me from across the store and I couldn’t resist. An interesting note is that if I had my Fuji XT-1 or Nikon D800 and tried to shoot this photo from inside a major retailer, I probably would have been stopped. However, with a little ole iPhone, no problem!!! Never mind that many of our newer smart phones are capable these days of shooting photos that are magazine quality!! #iphone7plus
June 19, 2006 – A BNSF mixed freight, with different paint schemes on the four lead units, heads southbound through the Cajon Pass in southern California, in this view from the famous train watching spot called Hill 582.
December 4, 2017 – Day 35 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge: Karate – My nephew Damion Is into Karate these days and as I sat watching his “Little Warrior’s” practice today I shot this photo with my iPhone 7 Plus Camera of him learning a new kick. To get the shot I wanted I had to use the zoom and if you look closely you can see the quality isn’t the greatest. I realize the iPhone 7 has a dual lens, but if you zoom beyond the optical limits of the camera it goes to a digital zoom, which just blows up the pixels, which isn’t nearly as good a quality. However, any picture is better than none!
December 3, 2017 – Day 34 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge: Jeremiah – My nephew Jeremiah has one of the most expressive faces!! That, along with the nice lighting on his face helped make this one of my favorite portraits I’ve shot of him so far! When photographing kids, I can’t stress enough that you have to be patient and quick!
December 2, 2017 – Day 33 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge: Shadows – I’ve always been fascinated by shadows! They just seem to be part of another demission in my option!! I wandered downtown to the Christmas Festivities in my hometown of Madisonville, Ky and found this shot at the “Ice” skating rink the city had setup there for the day. It’s not really ice, but a plastic material that has a slick spray coating on it. Either way it was very popular and crowded! I think I had to shoot 20-30 photos before I got one with just shadows and a composition that I liked! Sometime when you find a scene that will make a good photograph, but it’s just lacking that special something, just stand around and wait! There’s a good chance that it will come together! #iphone7plus
October 2, 2012 – Commuters wait on the platform as a metro train pulls into the Smithsonian Metro Station in Washington, DC, as another train waits to depart on the opposing track.
December 1, 2017 – Day 32 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge: Pound Puppy – I took my niece Elaina to her mom’s work to wait for her to get off this afternoon and while we were sitting in the RAV4 she kept say, what is that from the backseat. I couldn’t quite tell if she was talking about a game on her tablet or what until she pointed at the window in front of where we were parked and there appeared to be a little “Pound Puppy” sitting looking at the car! Well, I never let a photo opportunity pass by, so we got out, so I could take a picture of it when Elaina stepped in to the scene and looked up at the puppy. Click!!! Black and White picture of the day!! Thanks Elaina! Always be aware of your surroundings that may lend themselves to a picture, and sometimes take a kid along so they can point out things right in front of you! LOL – #iphone7plus
September 27, 2011 – BNSF 7902 leads a loaded intermodal through the famous “Sullivan’s Curve” as it heads north up the Cajon Pass in southern California.
“Sullivans Curve is where the Union Pacific Palmdale Cutoff, and the BNSF mains 1 and 2 curve in a large horseshoe curve directly next to some large, rather impressive, rock formations. Promotional photos taken at this curve for the Santa Fe in the 1930’s through the 1950’s by photographer Herb Sullivan were fantastic, and made famous by their composition. The curve that he used so frequently was named in his honor, and rightfully so.”
November 20, 2017 – CSX MOW crews work on finishing the installation of the new cantilever signal bridge at the new south end of Robards, Ky, as empty grain train G192 heads north on the Henderson Subdivision. At left is the new track being installed that will join the current sidings at Sebree and Robards, Ky together to create a new two track main that will run from the two towns. While the new track hasn’t connected to the sidings as of yet, crews are moving closer everyday.CSX G192 empty grain NB at Robards, Ky
September 27, 2011 – The sun begins to dip in the sky as a loaded BNSF freight train heads north up the grade in the Cajon Pass in southern California, approaching the Summit of the pass as BNSF 7726 leads the way. Shooting directly into the sun can cause many exposure issues, but if you get it right it can make for some spectacular photographs.
I shot this as a RAW file on a Nikon D700 Full Frame Camera and exposed more for the sun, but made sure I still had enough exposure in the midtones by checking my histogram.
By doing this I was able to bring the highlights down in RAW to bring the sun more in line with the rest of the photo and also used a gradient filter to help control the brightness of the sky. I also opened up the shadows in RAW to bring out the detail my sensor captured there, resulting is this final scene.
June 19, 2006 – A complete mashup of BNSF power, with different paint schemes, move a mixed freight train southbound down the Cajon Pass in southern California with a couple helpers on the rear, in this view from the famous train watching spot called Hill 582.
November 30, 2017 – Day 31 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge: Being Silly – My niece Elaina is one of my little shutterbugkids and today she came and asked me if she could shoot pictures, so I give her my iPhone 7 plus. She wandered around the house and front porch photographing two of her favorite subjects, my cats! Eventually she ended up back in my office wanting to shoot a selfie with me. After she got her shots I asked if I could shoot one and started to shoot it thinking it’d be my picture for the day, when she said, wait, I need glasses like you! Wouldn’t that be funny? So, she got another pair of the Dollar Tree readers that I have all over the house and put them on. Of course, to add to the silliness the tongues came out for the picture! When photographing kids it never hurts to take their direction as it can make for interesting photos! LOL If you’d like to see some of her work or that of her brother and cousins pay a visit to http://www.shutterbugkids.org. There’s links there for their Facebook and Instagram accounts, which have their most current photos.
November 29, 2017 – Day 30 – iPhone Daily B&W Photo Challenge: Boxes – What is about kids and boxes? Capturing photos of kids in their everyday environment, doing what kids do, can be a challenge. The key is to shoot, shoot, shoot, until you get that special picture that sings to you. With digital you can really never shoot too much! My nephew Damion had been feeling under the weather for several days and when he asked me if he could build a house out of a box this afternoon I couldn’t refuse! Of course, I knew that in the process there’d be a good picture or two! LOL All my nieces and nephews know me and my obsession with taking pictures!