More Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson railway photo practice

This is realistically the last decent weekend for fall foliage. All the leaves are dying off. The tree colors are muting.

But I wanted to get more practice with my stereoscopy project, and when you’ve got a tourist railroad a short drive away, you PRACTICE like you’re auditioning for Carnegie Hall.

Yesterday morning. I scoped out some new shooting locations, and felt that the side road off Route 9N that goes to County Route 10 – the same route I use when I photograph the night skies at the Corinth Reservoir – has a great forest-like shot.

And sure enough … just as I finished setting up … here comes ALCO-5 and a string of passenger cars.

And in alternating stereo it looks like this.

Yeah, I put the pivot point on the final reflector on the gate.

This is nice. And as the train rolled by, I twisted my tripod to the left … and captured the last car as it pulled away.

Or in alternating screens … it looks like this. And no, there wasn’t an earthquake in the middle of shooting. I think I had one of the cameras on a Dutch angle. But it looks better in the crossview, so I’ll take that.

I later thought it would be a good idea to race down to the train’s end station, the Kings Station in Greenfield Center. Now, I’m thinking that “Kings Station” is that spot where the restored D&H caboose stands on display.

No. No, no, no.

Apparently Kings Station is about 60 yards past that point. And I found a side road to access that area.

Sure enough, there was the train. Porters were escorting passengers and their families off, so that the passengers could enjoy a short stint at a specially-erected pumpkin patch. How cool is that? Way cool.

Of course, I’m not a big fan of photographing whole crews of families and kids without their permission, so I walked over to where the ALCO-5 locomotive was parked. You know what? Why waste an opportunity? Camera ready? Aim? Fire.

Note to self. Redo the cards before printing them; they all say “SHH” instead of “SC&H.” Bad Chuck.

Oh, I should note that as I caught this photo, the train blasted out a plume of smoke. So I oriented the pivot point on the smoke.

Now here’s the thing. I’ve got five decent stereoscopic images of the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson Railway. If I get two more stereo images … and maybe a couple extra to weed out some of my less satisfying ones …

I’d actually have enough photos to make a custom View-Master image.

So I’ll wait until there’s snow on the ground, so that I can capture the SC&H during its holiday-themed “Candy Cane Express.”

Yeah, Christmas and trains … I’m good with that.

Trust me on this.