Here’s what I’ve been up to since March.
The Last Three Months
The Last Three Months
I’m always taking photos. Here are some recent ones.
2013 – A Year in Review
Where to even start about 2013? On paper, it didn’t seem like a huge year- not a lot of big trips, not a ton of photos taken, a record-low number of miles on the Subaru -but in terms of change, personal growth, and big things professionally? 2013 was a pretty big deal. If the past twelve months have taught me anything (and they’ve taught me a lot) it’s that you never know where you’ll end up in the space of a year, and that luck certainly favors the prepared. That said, this will be a pretty short gallery of photos, so if you’re looking for a huge, artful spread of eye-catching images, I don’t really know what to tell you. Maybe you should follow me on Flickr. And now onto the photos…
Previous years:
Pocono
2013 saw IndyCar return to Pocono Raceway, in scenic Long Pond, PA. The last time a race of this kind (it was CART, back in those days) was held at Pocono the year was 1989, when yours truly was but a tiny race fan. It was one of the first races I remember clearly, with Danny Sullivan winning the event. He also won Nazareth, the next race I remember attending. Of course, from this small sample size, I assumed that Danny Sullivan won every race he entered, because I was a kid and kids think weird things like that. So anyway, Pocono hosted its first race in nearly 25 years, over July 4th weekend, and it was wonderful. Here are some somewhat related thoughts on my experiences:
1. Saturday’s Alright for Racing
If you’re a race fan, you know this. Going to the race on Sunday? You better be there on Saturday. In IndyCar, the race weekends are only two days, which means they cram a LOT into the day before the race, even more if there’s an Indy Lights event happening. From 9AM to 6PM there was something happening on track, and when there wasn’t, that just meant you should’ve been in the pits, enjoying the greatest bargain in racing, namely…
2. The best $20 You’ll Ever Spend
This is what separates IndyCar racing from its mouthbreathing third cousin, NASCAR: they actually WANT you to see the racing up close. Along with the general admission fee for Saturday, an extra Mr. Hamilton will gain you access to the pits, paddock, AND garages of the track. There, you’ll see the cars (like, if you really wanted to, you could touch them. And they’d likely let you, if you asked), the drivers, everything. Fancy yourself a photographer? You can take as many pictures as you like. Pictures like this:
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)
or, if closeups of drivers aren’t your speed, how about mechanics working on a car behind the pit wall?
Also, I’m not the biggest Penske fan in the world, so here’s a photo of Will Power’s broken down car:
3. The Best Fans in Racing
Know how there’s that stereotype of the beer-swilling shirtless redneck “WHOOOOO!!!”-ing every time the drivers come past him on the track? Ever been to a race where that guy (and 10,000 of his closest friends) are actually doing that? Yeah, it sucks, doesn’t it? The nice thing about open-wheel crowds is that the folks there are actually there to watch the race, not get so drunk that the sunburn doesn’t start to hurt until Tuesday. I’ve had more good conversations with strangers at IndyCar races than I have at any other sporting event, and this weekend was no different. Plus, the amount of people wearing Nazareth Speedway attire made me miss my dearly departed home track more than I thought possible.
4. Good Lord, Pocono is HUGE
Somewhat off topic, but this is worth mentioning. I live an hour from the greatest race course in the world, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, so I’m no stranger to what a 2.5 mile-long racecourse is all about, but Pocono is a bit different. It only has three turns, for one thing, and all three turns are completely different, based on turns from other famous tracks (Trenton, IMS, and Milwaukee, if you were curious), with straightaways of varying lengths connecting them. This means it’s a very long way from the front straight to Turn 2. Binoculars are a must. The cars were lapping the course around 220 MPH all weekend, due in large part do the recent resurfacing that made IndyCar’s return to Pocono possible.
5. Oh Yeah, the Racing
There were two races over the weekend- the Indy Lights series race, held on Saturday, and the Pocono 400 on Sunday. Remember what I said about Saturday? You should have been there: plenty of passes for the lead, the South American Driver of the Future Carlos Muñoz winning the race, and the other driver from Nazareth, Sage Karam, coming in second. Plus, you can watch the Saturday activities from any seat in the grandstand, so the aforementioned $20 meant you could watch the race from way up top in the slightly more expensive seats.
Let’s talk a minute about ticket prices, if you don’t mind. Saturday was, as discussed, $40 if you wanted to walk around the pits, or $20 if you just wanted to sit in the grandstands all day and see racecars. Sunday? Get this- general admission was $45. Seriously. For 400 miles of 200+MPH racing, with free parking. I know this sounds like I’m working for the Mattiolis here, but that’s a bargain. Also, if you have kids (I have cats, but maybe you have kids. Good on you. Kids are great!) they were free on Saturday and half price on Sunday. Beat that, every other televised sport! Pro tip: get there early on race day, because those roads do not handle traffic all that well. Just a heads up.
Sunday was awesome. My brother’s high school classmate and noted local driver Marco Andretti, who had been fastest in every session held on track all week, sat on pole, sharing the front row with two teammates from Andretti Racing. As part of the special championship of oval racing (I forget what it’s called and I’m too lazy to look it up right now), the cars lined up and started three-wide, which made for a great first lap, and first lap accident, with James “The Mayor of Hinchtown” Hinchcliffe wrecking hard in the first turn and bringing the crowd to their feet. The attendance was pretty decent, too, with more than 30,000 people showing up for the race. Anyway, 400 miles went by rather quickly. Some notes:
1) My favorite current driver, Takuma Sato, wrecked right in front of us, stupidly. We literally threw up our hands in disgust.
2) Marco’s consistently idiotic team ran him out of gas as he lost a commanding lead and finished 7th. The crowd was irked.
3) Speaking of Andretti, I think this is a weekend they’d like to forget altogether.
4) The IndyCar Radio broadcast was the PA feed for the race. That could change for 2014 and I wouldn’t mind. Heck, let me call the race, it can’t be all that different from college club hockey.
5) For having such an engaging twitter feed, the Herta car is having a TERRIBLE year. Tagliani deserves better.
6) Chip Ganassi surprised pretty much everyone and somehow found his cars finishing 1-2-3.
Friendly Kiwi Scott Dixon won the race. He seems like a nice enough guy, and I’m glad he won. Popular diabetic Charlie Kimball finished second, and Scottish brogue machine/former Mr. Ashley Judd Dario Franchitti finished third. All in all, an excellent race. I wish that Tony Kanaan had finished better, but he won the 500 this year, which is better than anything else that will happen in racing in 2013.
Personally, the weekend was everything I could have asked for: As previously noted, my dad and I rather enjoy racing, and his birthday was on the 7th, so getting to spend the weekend with him and my brother at the track was pretty special. On Sunday, my aunts Amy (who used to have a massive crush on Geoff Brabham) and Martha (former president of the Gerhard Berger Fan Club. I’m not kidding.) came out too, so it was a delightfully Capwell affair.
I heard from someone that the Mattioli family signed a three-year contract with IndyCar, which means this time next year I’ll be front and center at Pocono Raceway, booing the Penskes, rooting on the backmarkers, and getting sunburned with the rest of my fair-skinned family. Until then, thank you to Pocono Raceway, and happy birthday to my dad, the coolest race fan in my life:
I DID IT!
You guys, it’s OFFICIAL! Today I’m launching Louis Capwell Exclusive Environmental Portrait Special Happy Photo’s!! I’ve talked to SO many of my friends and they were all like “Lou, we Love your picture’s, you could TOTALLY do this for money ” so today I’m announcing it to everyone!
I looked on You-Tube and there is TONS of great resources for proffessionall photographer’s there! Who would of thought that “going pro” (lol but no really) would be so EASY? To show you all the awesome stuff I can do with your special pictures, here are some examples of my “handy-work!”
This is what’s known as a “vignette!” It’s prounciated different than it looks, but just look how pretty your little guy will look with this special effect. Since I don’t want anyone stealing my PROFFESSIONNALL PHOTO’S there’s a subtle watermark on each one on my web-site. Don’t worry- when you get your photo’s printed at Walmart’s they won’t be there.
This is a sepea picture. It’s alot like vintage photo’s from the 80s (80s! am I right? party!) so you can feel like your in a vintage time when people used analog (this means film) camera for their camera photo’s. Want a sepea vignette? We can do that!
You guys, this is my favorite. It’s a really brand new trend in the digital photography and look how it makes the photo “pop.” That’s what it means when a picture is good but you don’t know why it’s good its just good lol! Seriously tho when everything but one thing is in black and white its really cool.
So now that I made this announcement the next step I guess is you guys tell me how much you want to pay me for these picture’s lol I can maybe meet you in a park (the internet says that “environmental portraits” happen in the environment sooo I think thats what these are?) or at your house or maybe by a lake its up to you! Tell all your friends too I’ll make a business website on Face-Book too so make sure you “like” that when I do it! Im SO excited!!
Cima
In April of 2012, on the same trip that I took this picture, we spent a few days traversing the desert landscape of the Union Pacific’s Cima Subdivision. This line was built in the early 20th century as the Los Angeles and Salt Lake, and much of its vintage charm is still readily evident along its right of way.
A long-disused LA&SL maintenance-of-way car, Cima, CA
The main feature of this stretch of remote mainline is Cima Hill, the ruling grade, which clocks in at a stout 2.2%. Westbound trains descending the hill are restricted to 10 MPH, to avoid runaways. This also ensures that photographing a train on this line is a rather simple affair, and given the beautiful terrain, the more shots the better!
A view from Cima siding, at the top of the grade.
In addition to the delightfully slow track speed, there’s a road that parallels the tracks closely between Cima and Kelso, the next “town” west. It’s easy to get carried away and drive too far ahead of the train for the next shot, only to look in your rear view mirror and see a tiny headlight miles behind you.
The bumpy (but luckily paved!) road that runs along the tracks
My Hasselblad was the preferred camera for this part of our trip, and it’s not hard to see why- loaded with Fuji Acros, the desert’s subtle gradations simply come alive. Factor in the brilliant silver paint of the half century-old signals, and you’ve got yourself a perfect recipe for good train pictures. Armed with my 150mm lens, I captured this photo of a faraway approaching train, as it neared Kelso:
signals, code line, and desert
As the train disappeared into the dusky skies of southern California, I photographed it once more, as the DPU at the rear of the train rounded the curve. Framed with the road we’d been traveling all afternoon in hot pursuit, I think this made for the perfect “final frame” of the day. I can’t wait to go back!
blacktop, desert, and a glinty train.
2012- The Second Half
Wow.
That’s all I can really think when I look back on 2012. Since we last spoke in August, I won a photo contest, I drove across the country, I shot some weddings, I shot a massive six-weekend event in Orange County, and I got a kitten. That’s a lot of stuff! Have a look!
Happy New Year, everyone. Let’s have a great 2013.
In case you want to see how things went last year (rather well, I’d say!), have a look here.
Video!
It’s the end of 2012, which has been an amazing year, and I want to share with you a few things that have made my year so fun. I’m a photographer, first and foremost, but I’ve spent this year honing my video skills. Some for fun, some for clients, but all of it has been a wonderful adventure for yours truly. Here are a few examples of what I’m up to when I’m not shooting stills…
Alex and Lou Do Landing, NJ
In January, Alex, Dave and I went to our friend Peter’s house to work on his train layout. I had just gotten my HERO GoPro, so playing with it was a top priority. Hilarity ensued…
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
This was also the setting for the first of many, many time lapses I’ve created this year. Here we are cleaning Peter’s layout and returning it to working order:
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Rally Bethlehem Township!
My brother and I had some fun with the GoPro, too. We took a few laps around our mom’s neighborhood, with a variety of camera placements. Sort of seems like you’re watching some very exciting auto racing coverage, assuming excitement can occur at 35mph in suburbia.
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Macungie
When I’m back east, I spend a lot of time watching trains in my old haunts around the Lehigh Valley. NS’s Reading Line, which runs west from Allentown to (you guessed it!) Reading, is one of my favorite rail lines to frequent, and at night I like to sit in my car somewhere along the tracks, set up my camera, and let the trains go by. Well, this being 2012, I decided I’d also try my hand at shooting some train video. I was also able to combine another love of mine, audio recording, to try to tell the entire story of what it’s like to sit trackside at night:
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Swimming and Seeburg
Along with my field recordings adding some personality to my tiny contributions to web-based moviemaking, another reason I dabble as much as I do with video is that it’s the perfect vehicle to trot out my weird obsession with obscure music. A favorite catalog of mine, the Seeburg Background Music System, is a great source of inspiration for me when I’m cobbling together the footage I’ve shot. Here’s a bit of swimming pool fun I had with the GoPro, my brother, and our cousins. Waterproof cameras really are fun.
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Hello, Martha!
The very talented Laura submitted her fine works to a contest put on by Martha Stewart Living. Not only was she the sole Hoosier selected as a finalist, but her charming little animals ended up on the magazine’s website this winter! All of that is to say, part of Laura’s submission was this video I made of her making some stuffed animals.
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
French Lick Scenic Railway
I often find myself in French Lick, what with all that event shooting I do, so I have a fair amount of video from the time I spend there. Here’s a video I made of this year’s Polar Express event- keep an ear out for that aforementioned obscure music!
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Before the Polar Express began, though, those tents had to go up! Here’s a time lapse of a long day of temporary structure construction, nicely packaged into a sub-two minute piece of video:
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
The Fall Trip
Every October, my group of friends get together to take photographs of trains and hang out with each other outside in the foliage. We pick a different place every year to meet up, and in 2012, it was back to the spiritual home of our little club- Cresson, PA, on the west slope of the Alleghenies. Here’s a short video of some trains passing.
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
2012 Indiana State Fair
I love the State Fair. It’s one of my favorite things to see every year, and this time around I brought my Leica, a pocketful of expired print film, and tried to shoot the details of what makes the fair so meaningful to me. I hope I succeeded.
2012… So Far
Not gonna lie, I’m having an awesome year so far. I’ve been all over the place, I’ve had some really fun gigs, I’ve met a bunch of really awesome people, I got glasses, and i am taking some REALLY good pictures. Well, at least I think they’re good. I’ve made a little gallery of the first half of 2012 so you can see what I have been up to. Here’s to a strong finish to the year, and hopefully many more photos to put up on this here website!
A Bit About Myself
My professional life and my recreational life are, at times, rather intertwined; I’m someone who loves railroading, and all that goes along with it, and I’ve been fortunate (VERY fortunate) to derive a fair amount of my actual work from that love. Fans of my website will recall some of the work I’ve done with NS, but what I’m going to share with you here is something slightly different- my work with, and for, tourist railroads. The past few years have been wonderful in that I’ve had the opportunity to get to know so many fascinating people involved with the friendly world of tourist railroading. Here are some of my favorites.
This is Rick. Rick runs the Indiana Railway Museum, in French Lick, IN. He’s also the single hardest working, chicken-with-his-head-cut-off, constantly busy dude I’ve ever met. To show Rick at rest would be a gross misrepresentation of the man, so here he is leaning out of a moving coach in 20º weather during Polar Express, doing what he does best- “putting out fires.”
Close on the heels of Rick in the fictitious contest of “He who does the work of twenty people, while getting less sleep than any of those people,” is Rodney at the Potomac Eagle Scenic Railway, in Romney, WV. Rodney does it all, every weekend the Eagle is open, from driving people around, to running locomotives, to staying up late with me to spot engines for a night shoot, to taking tickets from passengers. He’s a guy who will do anything and everything to keep things running smoothly and safely.
This is Allan, he’s the head guy at TVRM’s shops. I mean “guy” because from what I gathered from talking to him, he’s someone who is in on everything from turning the massive drive wheels to UP’s 844 to welding and fabricating the new firebox for the museum’s own steam engine of renown, Southern 4501. He’s a guy with more stories about more crazy train happenings than anyone I’ve met in the business, and I only hung out with him for a few hours! If you ever have the chance to see the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, check it out- it’s an amazingly run place from top to bottom, and Allan is at the top of that list.
Meet Courtney Wilson. He’s the Executive Director of the B&O Museum in Baltimore. If you want an example of a Guy Who Gets Things Done, look no further. He’s got his finger on the pulse of every bit of the Museum’s operations, and just so you know, the B&O Museum is pretty much the granddaddy of them all- huge collection of one-of-a-kind equipment, second-to-none preservation facilities, and all set in a truly historically significant place. Here he is in the Museum’s shop building.
While in Bryson City, NC I had the opportunity to do some shooting on the Great Smoky Mountains RR for RailEvents, during their Dinosaur Train weekend. Here’s the GSMR’s senior engineer, Eric “Spider” Pittman. I shot this in the cab of their venerable GP-7, during a switching move. Between shoves, Spider had a story for every crossing, curve and wayside building- truly a guy who’s “qualified” on his railroad! He answered my copious questions about the history of the line, the lineage of the motive power, and everything else, and if you’ve met me, you know I ask a LOT of questions!
Last but not least, this is Jesse. I’ve been down to the Potomac Eagle a few times, but it wasn’t until recently that I had the pleasure to meet Jesse. He was a longtime C&O employee, who now runs trains on the weekends for fun in his retirement. He and his wife come to Romney from Eastern Ohio multiple times each summer- she works the ticket office, he runs the shuttle trains, and to spend time with either of them is to know what it means to live life to its fullest. Just make sure Jesse gets a cab with air conditioning, and he’ll tell you stories of railroading as it once was until it’s time to head home for the day. A class act, all the way.
So there you have it. To see a few more photos of train stuff, and train people, check out the gallery below.
Tehachapi!
I spent five days in California with two of my favorite people, and took some photos that I’m really quite proud of. Here is a gallery of the time spent out west. Enjoy!
Nature Photography Weekend Wrap-up
The Canyon Inn’s Nature Photography Weekend was an immense success – great weather, fortunate early-blooming flowers, and some awesome people really came together for a fun time. We had nearly twenty people out on the trails at any given time, and the level of skill and inventiveness on display was mindblowing. Sure, I could talk about how amazing and creative everyone was, but why not let their photography speak for itself, on the official Flickr photostream of the weekend: http://www.flickr.com/photos/canyoninnphotoweekend/
Nature Photography Weekend Announcement!
In but a few short weeks, from March 23-25 2012, I’ll be hosting a nature photography weekend at McCormick’s Creek State Park, in scenic Spencer, IN. We’ll explore outdoor and landscape photography using modern photographic techniques, and I’ll teach you how to get the most from your camera in a fun, informal atmosphere. For more information please contact Laura Stantz at the Canyon Inn, McCormick Creek’s lovely hotel, at LStantz@dnr.in.gov or by phone on 812-829-4881.
OTW 2012!!
Another February, another great weekend in the Alleghenies with some of my favorite people. Here are some of the pictures:
2011 Year In Review!
2011 was a hell of a year for me – I was published more this year than any year previously, I expanded my commercial business exponentially, and enjoyed some great trips with some great friends in between all that boring business stuff. I also spent a LOT of time shooting film, something I plan on doing even more of in 2012. Hope this was as great a year for you as it was here at louiscapwell.com! Here are some pictures:
New Photos in BizNS Magazine
Commercial photography is a large part of what makes me such a versatile shooter. Some of that work was recently showcased in this month’s issue of BizNS, Norfolk Southern’s company magazine. In October, Alex Lang and I shot extensively inside NS’s Juniata Shops in scenic Altoona, PA. His shooting, and my lighting, made many of our portrait subjects come alive, and the photos picked to go along with the article are testament not just to the hard work being put in at Juniata day in and day out, but to the fact that railroads are a living, breathing thing, and a vital part of what keeps America moving into the 21st century.
To see the full issue, check out this PDF link:
http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/bizns/bzns1211/NovDecBizNS_WEB.pdf
2011-2012 Indiana University Hockey Team Photo
For the past…. many years, I’ve been involved with the IU hockey team. This year’s team photo shoot was yesterday, and I’ve uploaded a few of the photos here.
For the full-size, printable images, check out this convenient link to the .zip file on http://www.mediafire.com/?0200v4pj5oqx50q
Film
I love to shoot film, anyone who knows me knows this. From the grainy perfection of processing a roll of black and white in Rodinal at my kitchen sink, to the lovely saturation of slide film run through a fifty year old camera, there’s nothing more fun (for me, at least) than having a photograph that I can hold in my hands after it’s taken. Sure, digital is great, and professionally, it’s probably 99% of what I shoot, but for me, when I’m just taking pictures for myself, it’s usually going to be on film. Lately, I’ve been scanning a lot of film, both old and new, because I just got a new (and much, much better) scanner, so I thought I’d post a few shots to the website, and share some of what I’ve been up to. Enjoy.
What I Did On My CRPA Vacation
A wonderful benefit of going to the Center for Railroad Photography and Art’s yearly conference is that it’s a great excuse to go to Chicago, meet up with some friends, and shoot trains. This year, I met up with Mike Johannessen (known for his excellent nighttime pans) and later in the week, Alex Lang, for some travel, excessive Dunkin Donuts consumption, and overall fun.
Every year, Alex and I endeavor to concentrate on one of the many aspects of Chicago railroading – in 2009 we shot extensively in northwestern Indiana, last year we shot one of the two remaining EJ&E “J Ball” units in Joliet, and explored that area’s many great spots. The focus this year was on documenting some of the disappearing searchlight signals on the former CB&Q and ATSF mainlines that point westward from Chicago, and to that end, we were very successful. Signal bridges still stand on both lines, and the trains (at least on the Santa Fe) were plentiful.
This was also the first year that I made an effort to shoot the CTA in downtown Chicago. Mike’s current passions lie very much in the transit-at-night realm of railroading, and it was fun to be swept up into his world for a few days, as we spent two very late nights shooting the L from many vantage points throughout the city.
Here are some photos from my week in Chicago. Enjoy!
