tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89766998138928201062024-03-19T01:48:21.755-07:00Under The Weatherwhat fun are photographs, if you can't share them?B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.comBlogger211125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-19679034356894260752016-02-06T07:48:00.001-08:002016-02-07T22:54:36.358-08:00In Search of the Illinois Central deep in Mississippi
A wave from the porch from the locals at Tillatoba, MS. . .
My friend Chris Palmieri didn't need much convincing.
How about joining me, I'd asked, on a long weekend trip to the middle of Mississippi to see the ghost of the Illinois Central brought to life, in an excursion train of beautiful chocolate and orange passenger cars pulled by a pair of E8's on the ancestral rails of the B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-19185762732902401382015-12-28T03:33:00.001-08:002015-12-28T03:54:39.971-08:00My Favorite Photos of 2015Time for this once again. It seems to be an every-other-year sorta thing, which is too bad, for I made some great photographs in 2014, and instead of compiling them here for presentation, had the mistaken impression I'd make them into a one-off monograph of my photos for the year. . . .which I never completed.
Nearly every one of these photos was taken outside my North Texas backyard. Apart B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-53521638297202052822015-10-18T00:51:00.001-07:002015-10-18T03:33:03.078-07:00Vale Stewart Lindsay Anderson
Sad news last week. Stewart Lindsay Anderson, Australian railwayman, author, photographer and publisher, died after a seven-year fight with cancer in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on October 11. He was 51. He leaves behind his wife, Helen, daughters Alison and Eleanor, and a world-wide collection of friends he’d acquired during many journeys overseas in pursuit of railway photography.B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-90481113216874087162015-04-27T19:14:00.001-07:002015-04-28T05:17:58.702-07:00A Pair of Amazing Supercells: April 26, 2014 Comanche, Erath and Eastland Counties
Way back when, in the late 1990s, I was a pretty dedicated storm chaser. The title of this blog, in fact, had its genesis from a website I maintained consisting primarily of storm chase reports. But time marched on--marriage, family, other responsibilities, and the idea of hopping in a car and driving 700 miles over a weekend chasing storms passed by the wayside.
The past year or so, the B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-89556249209522053732015-04-07T17:17:00.003-07:002015-04-07T17:17:34.677-07:00Park Forest: America's original GI town.
Aerial view of Park Forest, taken by my dad, Louis Kooistra, from friend's small plane in 1954. We're looking roughly northward; the street looping through the photo from upper left to upper right is Shabbona Drive; the land that will become Talala Elementary school dominates the view. My first home is under construction at this time--it's the 10th home from the right on the north side B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-64524399946608193602014-06-22T09:48:00.000-07:002014-06-22T10:07:39.265-07:00Spencer, North Carolina: When Dreams Came True
Friday night's photo session: Like something out of an old Wally Abbey or Parker Lamb photograph, Pennsylvania, Baltimore & Ohio, and Chesapeake & Ohio EMD cab's gathering in a light rain--as they might've in Cincinnati, say, in 1958. . .
A couple of times a year, I have a recurring dream.
I sneak into a locomotive rebuilding shop, dodging employees who would throw me off B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-47768690283250156982014-04-09T19:43:00.001-07:002014-04-14T20:32:22.401-07:00Chimping Allowed: First train chase with the Fuji X-series
W. of Mustang Creek:1/1600 f6.4 55-200mm @ 200mm ISO
I've had my Fuji X-E2 camera system since December, but really hadn't had the opportunity to take it out on a true "hard core" train chase trip until last week. Until then, I'd not had too many chances to try out the camera's continuous focusing ability on moving targets (no, I wasn't about to stand on the shoulder of the B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-49766729101844938962014-03-30T21:03:00.000-07:002014-03-30T21:03:01.316-07:00Rebirth from a Killer Tornado.
I joined a couple friends and snuck up onto a parking garage under construction today along Fort worth's bustling West 7th Street, ostensibly to photograph a train passing by the imposing facade of Montgomery Plaza, a high-end condo development.
I got the shot of the train alright, but I'm almost happier with this composition of the old Monkey Wards warehouse building, framed by the new B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-9854157154063256442014-03-14T18:39:00.002-07:002014-03-14T18:39:41.979-07:00The Scavenger.Here's four locomotives. To me, they're linked forever in time, and not just because of their location of operation, or their era, or their owner. Bear with me.
Burlington Northern F3A 702: It was unusual enough to have seen an actual "chicken wire" F3A in service in August of 1979, where we see the former Northern Pacific 6000D storming southbound across the White River bridge in Kent, B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-56751777740189795992014-03-08T12:28:00.002-08:002014-03-08T12:28:58.773-08:00David Nicoletti, 1949-2014
David Nicoletti, 1949-2014
I don't remember when, exactly, I first met Dave Nicoletti, but I can pretty well guess the location: in the parking lot at the depot in Vancouver, Washington.
That'd be a pretty good bet. Dave spent many of his Saturdays watching trains from inside the iron triangle formed by the BNSF lines going south into Portland and east up the Columbia River Gorge.B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-47603745848953349122014-02-28T20:59:00.001-08:002014-03-03T13:12:09.659-08:00Oasis in the Urban Core: Phillip Johnson's Water Gardens, Fort Worthhttp://bkooistra.smugmug.com/Fort-Worth-Arts-and-Food/
For as much as I malign Fort Worth, Texas, the place does have a few good thing going for it that help make it at least somewhat tolerable to live here: its art scene.
Downtown has a strong performing arts community with a symphony, an opera, several small acting companies and great performance venues. It has three world-class art B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-30442226644483006802014-02-28T08:48:00.001-08:002014-02-28T08:48:47.896-08:00For Miles and Miles. . .
Five hours earlier and 75 miles south of our previous photograph, we first encountered the same low-priority LVSC, loping along at MP633, laving just left the siding at Clear Lake, Utah. The idea that there's any sort of lake out here in the Escalante desert of southwestern Utah is a laughable idea. But the Escalante is a big bowl with no drainage, and on those rare years of excessive B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-21875755803809233272014-02-28T07:39:00.000-08:002014-02-28T08:03:03.218-08:00Rain Shower in the East Tintic Range
How I miss the west! I've lived in Texas now going on 18 years, and while the popular image of the place is decidedly "western," I tend to disagree.
Utah. Now THAT is the west.
While I do like the enormous weather overhead here on the Southern Plains in the springtime (and it's coming up again right soon), to me, the real wide-open spaces are found west of the Rockies. You can still get lostB. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-30285884782182204952014-02-26T20:24:00.006-08:002014-02-26T20:53:51.107-08:00Welcome to the Northwest! Yakima, October 1976
My first BN train photographed as a Washingtonian: Ellensburg turn returning to Yakima behind GP9 1728 and F7A 704.
I'm sure the jaded railfan in 1976 would have seen the railroading world as getting more homogenous by the day, with mergers and abandonments sweeping away hallowed traditions. Just that year, ConRail (originally with the uppercase "R") consolidated a number of colorful B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-45211317972108190862014-02-25T21:58:00.001-08:002014-02-25T21:58:23.564-08:00Slipping off the Learning Curve: on becoming a teenage railfan.Photographers often hear the phrase: "You're only as good as your last picture." Well, this post isn't about my last picture. It's about my first. Maybe not THEE first (I believe those were done on a hand-me down Kodak 126 roll camera, and who knows where those are), but at least the first efforts I made in putting railroads to film.
So, maybe the appropriate phase here is: "Show me the B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-12061857253461635532014-02-24T16:06:00.000-08:002014-02-24T18:30:09.030-08:00All Hail The Warbonnet!
Zooming northbound on an empty grain train, BNSF 8241 still wears its Santa Fe name and warbonnet paint scheme at Ponder, Texas, on February 21, 2014.
It's almost UN-AMERICAN to not love the silver and red Warbonnet paint scheme created for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway back in the late 1930s for its first streamlined passenger diesel locomotives.
It became an icon of B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-57954508716818422392014-02-20T21:39:00.000-08:002014-02-20T21:39:16.663-08:00Common experiences which span the globe. . .
My unsung heroes: Robert and Bruce Wheatley sign their books, Thirlmere, NSW Australia, 2012
These two guys pictured above--I'd like you to meet them. Though
they're a decade older than I am, and we grew up half a world away from
each other, we shared more than a few common experiences growing up.
Probably at the risk of shame and ridicule of their schoolmates, they
B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-24384339094970081462014-02-20T19:26:00.001-08:002014-02-20T19:46:41.613-08:00Wishram, Pt. II/Spring break destination, 1978!
It's 11:30pm, and train #75 pauses at Wishram for a quickie crew change before GP38-2 2090, and its GP9/F9A/C424 brethren move 108 cars east towards Pasco.
It took nine months after I moved to Seattle before I first visited Wishram, on a three-day, extended-weekend trip with fellow Seattle railfan Stan Lytle. We rolled into the remote division point near midnight after a long day on the B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-45511993418326887532014-02-19T19:20:00.001-08:002014-02-19T19:20:21.161-08:00Wishram: the true railroader's town/ part I
Happy faces greet familar friends as a train of Boeing aircraft fuselage sections changes crews in front of the old depot and beanery in February 1979.
Given the pivotal role railroads played in the opening of the western United States, calling a place a "railroad town" really isn't too difficult to do. Many of the west's larger towns were, to some extent, created by the railroad.B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-52244742125487394212014-02-18T20:03:00.002-08:002014-02-18T20:16:07.722-08:00The Road Goes On Forever. . .
He's Gaining on us! February, 1978, Columbia River Gorge.
The highway calls my name.
It's always out there, tempting me to shuck responsibilities for a few hours, a few days, a month. . .just calling me, imploring me to put rubber on asphalt and head out.
It really doesn't matter where. A two-lane road is preferable. And if there's a railroad track next to it--well, that's just the B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-43013759263944704512014-02-14T18:15:00.000-08:002014-02-14T18:22:06.197-08:00Pictures from the Filing Cabinet: first of an (occasional) series
Alco S-3 #36, built 1943, zips along the waterfront while switching just west of Union Station on May 28, 1978.
Though my main interest in scanning my 40 years of railroad
photograph has concentrated on color transparencies, I recently decided I
couldn't ignore the more than 600 rolls of black and white film stored
in a four-drawer filing cabinet. While I'm B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-58473964077374774392014-02-14T08:48:00.000-08:002014-02-14T11:32:50.571-08:00Opening the Black & White Vaults. . .
Grabbing orders, Milwaukee Road train #202, Kent, Washington. April 15, 1979
I've been asked to give a presentation about my now 40-years of railroad photography (that's a staggering amount of time when you apply it to someone else, and downright frightening when you're speaking about yourself!) to the annual "Conversations about Photography" conference by Center for Railroad B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-55394606907754119592013-12-27T21:12:00.001-08:002013-12-27T21:31:49.730-08:00The Gourds take a Hiatus
The Gourds, Lola's Fort Worth, February 2012
Last night, I finally heard the news--I'm a bit behind; it only took me a couple months--that the Austin-based band The Gourds were taking a break from performing and recording together. The band called it a "Hiatus."
This wrecked my night. The Gourds, to me, were one of only a few local bands (I use local to mean Texas-based or Texas-based at B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-68431688017420455912013-12-20T22:48:00.000-08:002013-12-20T23:13:31.729-08:00Best of 2013 photographsA long, long time ago--back in 2007!--I put together an end-of-year "best of" list of 10 favorite photographs from the previous 12 months. I guess this was a knee-jerk habit that carried over from my newspaper days, when the last week of the year was largely given to recaps and "best of"lists.
At the risk of underwhelming the minimal readership of this blog further, I'd dug out this year's Top B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8976699813892820106.post-45000955786018162222013-12-19T21:17:00.000-08:002013-12-19T22:12:15.452-08:00Back to the Basics
Dad
got his first Leica, a IIIf like the one on the right, after World War
II. He bought me my first "real" camera, the all-manual SLR mamiya/sekor
500TL, for Christmas in 1974, launching my interest in photography. My
new Fujifilm X-E2, bottom left, merges rangefinder styling with total
manual operation if desired--a perfect "photographer's camera" B. Kooistrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15150888384261119049noreply@blogger.com4