by James Payne
In January 2023 my fiancé and I decided to take a short train trip from Porto Portugal to Pinhao Portugal, just to enjoy a n adventure together. We arrived at the train station shortly after dawn and boarded a nearly empty train and were soon rolling through the hills and mountains through the Douro Valley. I had expected to take photos once we arrived in Pinhao, but the soft foggy light outside the train window was irresistible.
The results of my taking those photos has challenged many of my long-held biases. But first a little personal history to explain. As a teenager my only photographic interest was photographing natural landscapes. I avoided any indication that mankind had ever inhabited the earth; no fence, signpost, or road were included in my compositions. I worked in that “style” for several years.
My interest in photography eventually compelled me to enroll in a Cinema and Photography program where I was immediately challenged to expand my thinking. I was required to work in black and white, which I found unnatural. Next were courses in darkroom techniques such as solarization, polarization, color separations, etc. A straight photograph was considered a weak effort. I experimented but was never comfortable with these approaches to photography. However, I found my path in 1977 when I visited New York City, armed with a 35mm camera, a 20mm lens, and many rolls of Kodachrome 25. I quickly discovered my real interest, people in their natural environment. The resulting images were very rich in color and sharper than any other 35mm color film. Man-made environments replaced natural landscapes, the interaction of people within the cities they inhabited was too intriguing to ignore. As digital cameras evolved since then the ability to control sharpness and color has steadily increased also.
So why the story? Because the train trip and resulting photos have challenged my comfort zone again. My desire to carefully compose images, shoot in the highest resolution, image in the richest colors have all been softened, literally and figuratively. Aiming my camera out the train window eliminated most of the tools I have used for decades, helping me realize that I have been unconsciously relying on value presumptions that are self-limiting. The separation between urban and rural landscapes were also blended during the short trip.
I realized in hindsight that as the train rolled along I had almost no control of composition because there wasn’t enough time to zoom in or out, and I couldn’t change the angle or perspective. I also had no control of lighting. My image making was reduced to how quickly I could recognize the image as it sped past, and how quickly I could press the shutter. I had to chose which object in the frame I would aim at so there was usually some focus. Everything else in the foreground and background blurred from the motion close to the train and the fog that blurred distant objects. The surprise was how the images were more emotional, and less intellectual. I am not sure that I could replicate the process due to the variables involved, but I am now ambitious to let go of some of my photographic habits and desires and explore the emotional aspects of image making by not relying on controlling the results as much. Now the task will be changing the method of post-shoot image selection, and post-production. While the images from the trip are not extraordinary, I am enjoying them, but the discovery of the chance to free myself from some presumptions and values was an unexpected benefit of a romantic adventure.
