Greetings, and welcome not only to the “July 2005 Sampler” essay but to the beginning of a series that should last for a few years, with these sampler essays going to the end of the year 2008 and being published 20 years to the month after the images in the essays were made.
The Purposes Of These “Sampler” Photo Essays
The purpose of these sampler essays is to address the problem of how time-consuming it would be for me to go back and process, present, and describe each good image from each date for a year and to make a blog article for each such date, balanced with the desire to publish something from that time. Since, at the time that I am composing these sampler essays, I lack the time (or the inclination) to process, present, and describe each good image from each date for the time period in question, and since I also want to publish something from that time and discuss it, I make these “Sampler” essays, wherein I show one and only one good, presentable image from each date on which I have good, presentable images. Now, for some of the days for which I have more than one presentable image, I will publish one or more of those additional images on the Facebook page 20 years from the minute after they were taken.
Doing these sampler essays also helps me to better understand myself and the world, as revisiting the mental contexts in which I made these images allows me to analyze my own behavior and see patterns in the world. When I made these images, I did not know that I was autistic! I also didn’t know it a decade later when I was looking through these images for my decennial retrospective content that I was posting at the time, though I would begin to learn within a year that I am autistic.
Now, it’s quite amazing for me to read old email messages describing the events of the time and marvel, sometimes with a cringe, about how I was thinking at the time, and, now, I definitely can see patterns!
The Confluence Of Three Major Personal Events.
For me, there were three major personal events that roughly coincided in the summer of 2005, and one of them was much more than a personal event, as it was a major world event that impacted me and many other people in my region.
The first event is consequential because I am known to be a photographer and because photography is an obsession for me. I finally “went digital”. I got my first digital single-lens-reflex camera, a Canon Rebel. The second event, which was put into motion before the first event happened, is that I moved from the bayou to the big city to take a new job for the purpose of moving to the big city. The third event made that second event seem very-dubiously timed: Hurricane Katrina.
In the case of the camera, my film camera had begun to malfunction, and repairing it would have been costly. The funny thing was that I ended up paying for it to be repaired anyway but never used it afterward. The big issue was the inopportune timing. I was scheduled to make a big trip to New England, my first time going there, and the film camera would not be repaired in time. So, I broke down and shed the funds for not only a new camera and a new telephoto lens but, also, a new computer, because I needed to be able to download, process, and store the images from the new camera!
A Vexing “Raw” Issue
One thing that very much frustrates me when viewing and, then, presenting my digital images from the time that I went digital in July 2005 until the autumn of 2006 is that, even though, per recommendations from photographers whom I respected at the time, I shot the pictures in “RAW” mode, the images, for some reason, didn’t get saved as RAW images. That means that the images were saved as jpegs, and that very much influences, and in an entirely negative way, the quality of the images presented from that time.
New Subjects For A New Medium
Since the move to New Orleans happened right after I went digital (and was planned before I went digital), some of the subjects for which I became relatively well known, specifically, the New Orleans & Gulf Coast Railway and the Norfolk Southern Back Belt line, are subjects that I began photographing shortly after I went digital. So, my first images of those subjects are among my first digital images.
The Pictures From July 2005
I am not sure when the new camera arrived, but it probably arrived on the 8th, because the first picture is from the afternoon of the 8th, and I wouldn’t have waited long to try to use my new toy!
So, that’s when the pictures start.
Friday, The 8th
The very first train that I photographed with my new digital SLR camera, my first digital SLR camera, and the second picture that I took with the camera (the first was a self portrait in the mirror in the bathroom at home), was, appropriately, of the Union Pacific Railroad local train on the Lafayette Subdivision, the LLS51, The Chip Local, and, appropriately, it was at Schriever.
Not so appropriately, it was just light power.
Saturday, The 9th
It’s hot, it’s summer, being by the track for long isn’t pleasant, but I have this new toy; so, I go to the track to find something to photograph with it.
That’s something that I would not usually photograph.
Monday, The 11th
I vaguely recall that the telephoto lens didn’t arrive with the camera and the kit lens, and the first telephoto images with the new camera are not until this day.
The first thing that I photographed with the telephoto lens was a stack of tie plates.
The first moving thing that I photographed with the telephoto lens is ATSF crane and flatcar moving westbound on the mainline at Schriever.
I then photographed BNSF 684 and one other locomotive moving westbound as a light power move westbound at Horseshoe Road. Damn; the two moving “trains” that I have photographed so far with my first digital SLR camera are light power moves.
Tuesday, The 12th
‘Twas on this day that I finally got what I think are my first good digital train pictures. On this afternoon, I photographed the UP local train at Thibodaux Junction. Then, 40minutes later, I photographed the eastbound Amtrak Sunset Limited at the same spot.
These would be my last pre-Katrina pictures of the Sunset Limited, a distinction that is important for at least two reasons; first, for months after Katrina, the train did not go east of San Antonio, and, second, once it did, it only went as far as New Orleans.
Then, I went to see, Scout, Skippy, Sam, and, maybe, Tammy, too.
Thursday, The 14th
I went scope out apartments on the West Bank, and I wanted to see them at night, when the regular people who lived there were there. I went to places that Mrs V recommended and one that she didn’t recommend.
I was exiting off the West Bank Expressway eastbound onto Terry Parkway. It was raining, and traffic was moving at a snail’s pace. I was slowly creeping down the ramp when a forceful impact pushed me several feet more down the ramp. Fortunately, the automobile in front of me had just moved forward, or it, too, would have been hit. The guy who hit me was younger than I am. He apologized profusely and called the police.
There was enough room on the should of the exit ramp for traffic to go around us.
I couldn’t help but take it as a bad omen about taking the job.
The damage included the usual that one would expect to the back of the vehicle, in my case including the fact that the back hatch could not be opened. Also, my driver’s seat recliner would not lock in upright position, meaning that I had to make the long lonely ride home – and throughout the West Bank afterward – sitting upright with nothing holding me up, which was very uncomfortable.
In the research that I did for this essay, I have learned that, apparently, the guy who rearended me that day died back in 2011. That seems so sad. Life is so short.
After spending more than an hour on the wreck, I went look at apartments, got creeped out, went to a coffee shop, went look at more apartments, decided that I didn’t want to take the job, went look at more apartments, decided again that I really didn’t want to move here because the place did not comfort me, saw a young couple who lived there and talked to them for an hour, to my surprise, felt more reassured, went look at one more apartment on Manhattan Blvd that they recommended that Mrs V had not recommended, really liked the looks of the place, in addition to the fact that it was the only one without a gate through which to pass to get in, talked to about five people who lived there, heard glowing reviews from all of them, was told that a single bedroom apartment there would run me a little bit more than $500/month, felt satisfied, and left.
Friday, The 15th
I got home on this morning in the wee hours from the apartment-reconnoitering expedition. This day was a year to the day after I visited Cañón Huasteca. After sleeping the night, that evening, in my damaged truck, I went to Schriever and saw this.
That is a passenger waiting on Amtrak’s eastbound Sunset Limited, and that scene says so much about passenger railroading in the United States and our values and priorities. There is not even a train in this picture, but there are some powerful metaphors of time and place, distance and desire, despair and hope, then and now.
I felt bad for the woman in the picture. Likely, she was going somewhere east of New Orleans, since a trip by train to New Orleans from Schriever wouldn’t make much sense when the train so often runs so late and when New Orleans is so close; of course, a train trip from here to the other side of New Orleans has been impossible since Hurricane Katrina came a few weeks later, although, as I am typing this 20 years after the images were made, Amtrak service is about to begin between New Orleans and Mobile, but that’s a separate train (which I think is good.)
Life was about to get more colorful, as you shall soon see.
Tuesday, The 19th
This day was a very memorable, eventful, and emotional day for me. I talked to the AP at the school board office on this morning. He said that he hated to lose me but understood my reasons. I explained them. He went on to talk about the possibility of me coming back in the future if I wanted to do so.
Wednesday, The 20th
On this day, I got onto an airplane at MSY, with a flight path of New Orleans to Washington to New York to Boston. At Reagan airport, I saw Bob Woodward, and he was buying a copy of the day’s The Washington Post! On the flight to Boston, I, in the vulnerable state in which I was at the time, found myself talking about the job and location change decision to a stranger sitting next to me; he encouraged me to go for it.
In retrospect, the decision seems so obvious! That certitude gleaned through retrospection has helped me to be, in subsequent decisions and situations, less indecisive; I am better able to see now when not changing the status quo is to be avoided.
I got my rental automobile – a Ford Taurus, as I recall – and headed north to Maine, where I ended the day.
That is Mile Road in Wells, Maine. This was my first time in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Maine.
Thursday, The 21st
On this day, I crossed the Rubicon in Maine, which is to say that this is the day that I, using what is now an antique cellular telephone, resigned from my job back home by calling from a picnic table of the New Mills Market in Gardiner, Maine, a place that was, to my own inexperienced eyes and to my own prejudices, a very New-Englandlike scene with a very New-Englandlike name.
Before I made the decision, I lied down on top of the table in agony and looked to the sky.
I did it, though, and it was one of the best if not the best difficult of decisions that I have made in my life.
Later that day, near dusk, I saw and photographed some neat old boxcars in the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway yard in Oakfield, Maine. I spent the night in Presque Isle, which was interesting.
Friday, The 22nd
I photographed an MM&A Railway westbound train led by MMA 8548 at Madawaska, Maine, and, then, I entered New Brunswick and, thus, Canada.
This was my first time entering Canada on my own.
Later that afternoon, I got my first action train photograph in Canada, as I found a Canadian National Railway local train with CN 4720 as power pulling a few centerbeam flatcars and hopper cars westbound at Chemin Thériault in Sainte-Anne, New Brunswick.
There is something interesting to note here. I had gone digital 13 days before and had now taken action train pictures in Louisiana, Maine, and New Brunswick, and all freight trains that I had yet photographed were local trains or light-power moves! That would change this evening when I got a going-away shot of a CN intermodal train that isn’t even presentationworthy.
I spent the night in New Brunswick, which was planned, but the experience was fouled by the fact that I busted a tire on the rental automobile.
Saturday, The 23rd
All that I could do before my planned midday repatriation was focus on getting the tire fixed.
At about midday or early afternoon, I got to Squapan, Maine, where I saw and photographed, at Maine Highway 11, a moving Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway train.
Later in the afternoon in Newport, Maine, I found this Guilford Rail System train!
Check out the high-nose locomotive!
Sunday, The 24th
This day was my scheduled arrival in Salem, Massachusetts, for the start of the workshop that I was attending. I started the day in Danville Junction, Maine, where I saw and photographed ST 212 and a string of boxcars.
I then went south to Massachusetts. I arrived in Salem and, before I settled into the dormitory, I photographed a northbound Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority train at Jefferson Avenue.
Monday, The 25th
Oh, what’s this?
Yeah, that’s the workshop.
Tuesday, The 26th
I think that this is the day that I did something colossally dumb, very costly, and I think that it happened before we took a ride in the schooner Fame in Salem Harbor.
At least the schooner ride was a good time!
Wednesday, The 27th
I assessed the damage at the marina.
It was embarrassing.
Friday, The 29th
Here is the Brookhouse Home and Custom House on Derby Street in Salem.
There is plenty of interesting history there.
So ended the Salem experience, and, as of my typing this almost 20 years later, I have not returned to Massachusetts or Maine, though I did go to New Hampshire and Vermont five years later.
Sunday, The 31st
This is O’Hare International Airport.
Here at O’Hare, I saw a short old man whose face looked familiar. That looks like Senator Ted Stevens! Sure enough, I glanced down at a bag that he was carrying, and I read the name “Stevens” on it.
Now, typing this story, I just got a sick feeling knowing how Stevens met his fate and that my one encounter with him was in an airport.
I was on my way to Detroit for another week-long workshop there before heading home to start the new job and get my life upended by Hurricane Katrina.
Stay tuned for that with the “August 2005 Sampler” essay.
Jbx
