Fargo, North Dakota

This week’s photo challenge asks for two images of the same subject, one in horizontal format and one vertical. The challenge has two rules: 1. the shots need to show that the subject is the same place, person or thing, and 2. the photos should come from the same photo shoot.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a very long train parked on one of the tracks as I travelled on the rail yard overpass. The train was composed of only brand new oil tanker cars. From the top of the overpass, I could barely see the two engines in the distance. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know where these cars were destined. Western North Dakota has some of the world’s largest oil reserves in a range called the Bakken. The oil fields are relatively new and there is little pipeline infrastructure in place to handle the large amounts of oil being harvested daily. Consequently, oil companies have turned to rail to ship their crude oil production.

I couldn’t resist going under the bridge and taking a few photos of the cars. I often take both vertical and horizontal shots and decide which I prefer when I get them on the computer and can view them in a larger size. This was the case for these photos as well. Both formats have their advantage. The vertical image includes only the subject which draws the eye from the closest car along the set of symmetrical curves to the end of the train. The horizontal image provides the viewer with some location information. We can see more of the bridge structure.

Though they were taken in color, the black and white paint scheme on the cars and the gray of the bridge and steel rails, along with the cloudy gray sky all but shouted to me that the photos would be best viewed in black and white. They were converted using Photoshop Elements.

The images were taken with a Nikon D7000 at F7.1, 1/200 s, 50 mm, ISO 200.

John Steiner