I am more and more familiar with the areas that surround my daily routine of school. Believe it or not, but when I ride TRAX, I use the time to look out the window at the passing world. There is a hill that one must ride up to get from the "Trolley" station to the University of Utah. The track begins on 4th south, and transfers to 5th south. This is where I thought idea number two would be ideal, so I hopped in my car and drove through the lightly falling snow.
As I got to 4th south and began my climb to the top of the hill I began to scout my ideal shot. I set myself on autopilot and drove around the curve. Nearly too late for a stop in the first half of the intersection that was clearly giving me the signal not to enter, I stomped the brake pedal. Much to my embarrassment I went about a whole car length into the intersection, but quickly backed out to avoid any judgment from neighboring vehicles. I spent the whole time stopped reminiscing about my foolish lack of attention to driving. I shook it off as the go ahead light came on, and I continued on my photo journey. I got to the "Stadium" TRAX station and stepped out of the vehicle. At this point I had about 13 minutes until the next westbound train would arrive, to I used it as an opportunity to snap a few shots to get my light settings about right.
I set the shutter to 4 seconds and crouched down in an attempt to keep my shaking body as still as I could. If someone had told me I was as steady as a tripod I would have laughed politely in their face. Needless to say, even crouching in the cold, with only a light sweatshirt for protection from the frigged air, I found it impossible to keep a steady hand as I waited for the eternity that was experienced for those 4 seconds that the shutter was open. I got a few photos that were pretty good on the minuscule viewfinder, but as I looked at them at home found them disappointing. I am willing to give a tripod a good home. (Also taking donations)
Now it was the moment of truth. Only 2 minutes until the train was scheduled to arrive. I started the trek to the new location where idea 3 would be brought into action. Since my time was scarce, I found the best allocation of my resources would be to take many photos to get the new locations lighting situated rather than taking 1 or 2 photos with the proper shutter timing. I set it so that it was perfect, then set the shutter to 20 seconds. This was to be my "crown jewel" of my photographs. I had planned it so perfectly in theory. I would use the railing as a dead rest for my camera, set the shutter for 20 seconds, set the ISO to 800, -2 exposure compensation, aperture.... I don't understand quite yet how to take advantage of it so it was unchanged. The train pulled up. It was time to shine. It started to pull away, I pushed the shutter button halfway to focus, and then the remainder. It was going to work out just as I had planned. The train would disappear around the corner just before the shutter closed. Success! Little did I know, when I would review the actual photo a terrible feeling of wasted time would flush over me. Not success, failure number 3. I was downtrodden, but not about to stick around shivering for 15 minutes in the 21 degree air to get a single additional chance. The photo sucks.
