This week, four friends connived to bring us the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. It’s the first anniversary of the photo challenge that came about with the demise of the original WordPress Photo Challenge.

It was with great disappointment that I learned the challenge would be discontinued. I looked forward each week to participating. Apparently, so did many others and four people, Amy, Tina, Ann-Christine, and Patti put their heads together and created the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. I’ve been following from the beginning.

Each Saturday, the four creators take turns coming up with the week’s challenge topic. I publish my regular features on Sundays and Tuesdays, so I have until Thursday to come up with a photo challenge response and every Thursday I try to come up with something that meets the challenge. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes… well, not so much. This week I hope to come up with a single image that fits one of the four topics they suggest. You can read about this week’s unusual challenge topic here. In my opening photo above, the steam engine 111 out of Georgetown Colorado, a narrow gauge mining train focuses on the topic choice “imaginative.” In the development of our country, nothing did more to help our country grow and expand westward than the railroad. The design and construction of the world’s railroads was, if nothing else, imaginative.

Probably one of my ten favorite photographs since I rekindled my interest in photography is also railroad related. The image above features a collection of brand new oil tank cars on their way to the oil fields of North Dakota some years ago. These cars are not only physically connected, they also represent the connection of the country by the many thousands of miles of railroad track that crisscross the country. Forgive me for sharing it yet again.

In 2006, we visited Mexico and on the beach in Mazatlán, I noticed two beach vendors in animated conversation. I’m going to stretch to put this photo in the category of friendship. I was too far away to determine whether their conversation was friendly or adversarial, but judging from their body language as I watched, I have every reason to believe it was an encounter of two friends discussing the day’s successes and failures. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The final theme choice, topical as it’s so close to our Independence Day holiday is “A country that’s special to you.” This photograph is freshly published and created with new and old tools from an original captured in June, 2017 during a visit to the national memorial. I’ve always been a fan of black and white photography and one of my favorite tools for converting today’s admittedly fabulous color digital images is Silver Efex II, originally from NIK, now DXO software. As always, in most browsers, you can click on an image to enlarge it for a better view.

John Steiner