From left young railfans, Nathan, Andrew, Michael and Brian, trackside on the Nashville Subdivision in Nashville, TN.
Today I was in Nashville taking part in a Macro Photography Workshop at Dury’s Camera. While listening to the presenter and watching the pictures flashing on the screen, I kept hearing trains pass by as they blew the crossing right up the street from the store. While I love photography in all aspects one of my favorite things as many of you know is to photograph trains and I got to the point where I couldn’t stand it any longer. The workshop was about over anyway so myself, my sister and a fellow member of the photography club, Steve King, set out to see if we couldn’t catch a couple of trains before we went downtown to link up with another friend, Ray Quijano for dinner at his townhouse.
Well, the above kinda sets the stage for the picture you see here. Being a railfan (foamer as we’re affectionately called) I was really surprised and pleased to see and meet Nathan, Andrew, Michael and Brian, four young railfans that were busy shooting videos and photographs of the trains that were coming and going just off of Fogg Street.
I can honestly say that in all my travels around the world, and that’s 66 different countries, photographing trains, these four are the first I can recall meeting that were there for the specific purpose of shooting video and photos of trains. They were also very safety minded as well. When I first got there I was just trying to decide where I wanted to setup and Andrew didn’t hesitate to mention to me not to setup too close to the right-of-way.
They were polite, energetic and excited about what they were doing, and from what I gather, have been doing together for sometime now. I don’t know their parents, but I can say that from what I observed and gathered from meeting them today, they’re doing a fine job of raising their sons.
There’s still hope for the future of railfanning! Below is a short video I shot of them trackside.
Photo was shot with my iPhone 5s with the built-in camera app. Post processing was done using Photoshop CS6 and Topaz Adjust.
March 15, 2014 Young Nashville, Tennessee Railfans from Jim Pearson on Vimeo.