Crossing
Crossing
I photographed Crossing on an overcast summer Saturday. I was a university student holding a summer job and wanted to take advantage of a rare Saturday off for my photography. I got onto Manitoba Highway #2 and drove west. After driving for a while I picked a random side road and pulled-off the highway to do some photography. Picking random spots was a game I played with myself. I’d go to a place and force myself to look for interesting subjects to photograph. In this case, the area around the railway crossing provided some interesting subjects.
After photographing some landscapes and an interesting thistle bush, my gaze caught the crossing markers. Since it was an overcast day, the colours were drab and boring. The red markings on the crossing markers are a key visual feature so I thought about ways to make them stand out. There was no way to do it in-camera, so I decided to use my flash. I took a few photographs from different angles using my flash. Of course, in the day of film I had no way of knowing if my plan worked out until the slides came back from processing.
As you can see, the plan worked. The flash illuminated the reflective tape on the sign an made it glow. Now, instead of drab colours, I had the dramatic colours of the sign contrasting with the drab bluish-grey sky. I set out to photograph one of the taken-for-granted features of the prairie landscape and I’m pleased with the results.
Nikon FE2 w. Nikkor 35 f/2. Settings unknown.
