Photo by Ron Daniel
Unexpected Loco in an Unexpected Tunnel
In June 2024, while on a bush walk in NSW Australia, where we often experience wild fires, I came across one of our native gum trees heavily disfigured from previous fire, yet still surviving albeit with a shell of its former trunk sustaining new growth. On the same trip, we took an excursion on an old steam railway line and got to see the locomotive switching ends on the train.
Two years prior, during Sydney’s annual light show spectacular call Vivid Sydney, there was a an old rail goods line re-purposed for a laser light and sound exhibit, in which the light of an oncoming steam train, with sound appeared. I managed to capture a scene containing this bright light.
While post processing the photo of the tree and some shots of the train, an idea came to me to create an imaginary scene where someone peering deep into the tree from a short distance outside, might be frightened to imagine an oncoming train in the abyss of this seemingly dead, but very much alive tree. But upon closer look, is the training coming at you, or has your mind deceived you ?
Post processing notes:
I used On1 exclusively to layer, blend and mask three images here. The tree being the frame for the photo, starts as the base layer and is also from where I made a luminosty mask. I used that mask to over the top of the image layer of the train to mask it into the position within the tree. To have the train in the correct orientation with its tracks, I horizontally flipped the train layer before applying the mask. The background light and light funnel from the loco's lens is a further image layed over the top, again using the mask I made from the black of the tree trunk.Exif information:
Copyright: | Ron Daniel |
Camera: | ILCE-7M2 |
Aperture: | f/9 |
Focal Length: | 18mm |
ISO: | 400 |
Shutter Speed: | 1/25 sec. |
Created: | June 4, 2024 21:17:56 |