Fish Out of Water

Point for Pondering:

When you think of your typical transit photography setting, what first comes to mind?

It could very well be a fully packed transit bus rambling down a broad thoroughfare amid a densely populated neighborhood, or dropping off people in a cluttered commercial area.  It may be a light rail train zipping along heavily graded right of way between stations, or it may be a subway train stopping at a bustling transfer interchange point.  Keep those thoughts, please.

For decades, mass transit's primary domain has been moving, well, the masses.  Its areas of primary success have been those with large and dense populations of potential customers of modest means.  When it comes to buses, due to the size of the vehicles, the noise they create, and the general wishes of neighborhood residents due to these factors, they typically are restrained to mainline arteries.  Key word: TYPICALLY.

For many years, I've had a peculiar fascination with the outliers to the the above premise, and have made some effort to try to document these as much as I could.  These may have included something as simple as particularly narrow city streets that buses traversed to connect between major arteries, bus service on narrow residential roadways in well-to-do areas, or transit service of any mode in an area that looks like it doesn't have ANY density to be able to support it!  

Depending on where you live, the availability of these "fish out of water" situations will obviously vary.  In my general area in the mid-Atlantic, such interesting locational opportunities, while never all that prevalent to begin with, have been in an increasing state of decline.  The general tendency in most transit agencies is to streamline service, with the focus being increasingly on core service pattern with minimal deviation.  As such, one may have to do some particular scanning of the local service information maps and timetables, while perusing Google Street View to scout out possibilities of this sort.  

Why tell this story?

One might rightfully be able to argue that since these situations are atypical of most transit operations, their importance should not be artificially inflated.  Fair enough indeed, but I'd counter by saying that any story worth telling is worth telling completely.  Besides, some of these unusual settings can serve as illustrated examples of the diversity and versatility possible with transit service, even if these outliers may be far from perfect. 

Examples:

For the history buffs, the best example of outliers are that of service running on narrow arteries in dense environments in the "Olde City." Service running on belgian block or brick paved streets is a bonus!  Composition of such shots can be pretty challenging due to parked cars and other obstructions, and may be best accomplished through a largely head-on perspective.  

The following shot doesn't quite successfully illustrate the narrowness of Hughes Street on which the #1 runs, due to my interest in positioning the street paving in the foreground, but definitely makes me feel like I should make a return trip for another try! 

Moving outward from the city core, another example shows a full size transit bus traversing a particularly narrow residential street in a moderate density, working class neighborhood:

From the 1940's until 2008, interesting shots such as this were possible in Baltimore on the #11 line, which ran along narrow residential streets in a quaint well-to-do neighborhood, directly past ponds with fountains.  Service was then entirely relocated to the nearest main artery.  

The following shot doesn't readily illustrate the affluence of the area in which it is operating, though it does give a look far removed from the typical transit environment.  I am glad I took the time and effort to get this photo, as service stopped running here in 2005.

And definitely far-removed from the usual urban environs is this shot taken around 2001, in one of the most far-flung parts of the service area.  Standing out street-side awaiting this shot to happen definitely turned some heads from the passing motorists.  As with the last couple shots, this shot is no longer possible due to service cutbacks.

Though shots like this are admittedly more of a bus phenomenon than a rail one, there are some current examples in our nation's limited rail infrastructure in which both street-running rail systems, and those on private right-of-ways can be spotted in some atypical settings.  The following shot shows an extension of the #13 trolley in Philadelphia that winds its way through some narrow residential streets in the Darby area.  Though  too wedge like in nature to really illustrative (thanks to me rushing the shot), it does give just one example of a rail operation with a unique operating nature.  To be said, there are a number of others. 

To close, I would like to merely say the following, without sounding alarmist.  Never take for granted that the shot you may wish to take today will exist tomorrow.  You'll note that three of the six examples shown above are no longer possible to capture, aside from chartering a bus and "posing" them.  Outliers like those above a neat, and rewarding way to add a novel amount of variety to your photo collection, and they will certainly be ones that you will look back upon with a feeling of both interest and accomplishment! 

Landmarking

I may not typically copyright my photos, but I'm copyrighting the term: Landmarking.

No, this is not referring to what a dog or frat boy does to the newly fallen snow.  It is actually one of the more instantly rewarding methods used in transit photography to create a very memorable image.  Quite simply, it is the deliberate placement of a landmark of some sort into the framing of the image.  

Though it normally requires some degree of pre-planning to best accomplish, it is among the best ways to add local context and story to your transit images.  Even more interestingly, it can be accomplished in numerous ways compositionally.  Let's take a look at some composition methods with landmarks.

Distant:

With this method, the landmark of interest is typically at least a half a mile away in the backdrop.  This method is often used to bring skylines or other massive structures into the frame.  Though a zoom lens can be helpful in compressing the composition and make the distant landmark more prominent, it may not always be necessary.  The photo above was simply taken at a normal focal length.

Nearby:

This composition method works well with landmarks of moderate size and/or height and involves a setup anywhere from a block away to as much as a half a mile, depending partially on sight lines, but also shaped largely by the focal length of the shot.  A wide angle shot and a partial telephoto shot will have significant compositional differences on the background elements. 

Adjacent:

This composition method works well with more modest size landmarks and involves taking an image of the transit vehicle passing directly by the landmark itself. It works well with items like fountains and statues, as seen above, but also with modest size urban movie theaters, diners, or potentially even recognizable natural features such as a community Christmas tree.

Foreground:

Though not too often used, this can actually be one of the more engaging and fun ways to compose photos with a transit context.  In these images, the transit vehicle becomes much more of an incidental in the photograph, as opposed to a cornerstone, but with some creative composition, it doesn't have to be relegated to being unimportant.  This composition method is typically only workable with smaller landmarks such as sidewalk statuary and monuments. 

Combining Landmarking methods:

When working landmarks into your transit images, there is certainly no rule that states that you need to only use a single composition method.  In fact, your photo can tell a great deal more by combining multiple methods onto a single image. The photo above is one of my favorite examples of this, positioning the Baltimore skyline as a distant landmark with the Patterson Theater in a nearby/adjacent position.  The result is an image that offers a significant amount of geographic context.  

Putting these methods into practice:

Landmarking can also be a pretty fun thing to plan for, and this planning can be done in a couple of ways, depending on one's familiarity with the region they are planning to photograph. One might take the timetable map of a line and work their way along it trying to figure out good places to work in landmark type shots.  One can also think specifically of the landmark that they want to work into their shot, and then work outward to research transit lines that can be readily incorporated into the shot.  

In either method, it can also be helpful to consider lighting factors that may be at play as well as traffic conditions that might hinder one's ability to get the desired photo.  Recent tools such as Google Maps and their Streetview Tool can also be quite helpful in doing some homework to offer good starting locations for setting up shop.  However, do keep in mind that Streetview uses a very wide angle lens, which can distort the relation of distant objects. For example, the location in the photo just above looks like this in GSV, leaving one to believe the distant skyline is not even visible. 


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One of the more rewarding things about landmarking is that the frustration factor can be lessened with proper planning and a bit of good luck.  In nearly all cases, landmarks don't move, so they can pre-composed as you await the one mobile item to complete the composition, the transit vehicle.  Now to only hope another mobile item that you don't want to be prominent in your composition doesn't come along and wreck things!