In 2019, the Union Pacific locomotive 4014 Big Boy came through our area and I wrote a blog post about photographing it. You can see that post here.
Today, it was on another midwest tour so I decided to photograph it again. I decided this time I wanted to take images with a scenic touch. LaFox, Illinois, an unincorporated community of less than 1000 people has an older depot building. I thought getting a series of images with that in the background would be nice.
We arrived to find a few people set up in a parking lot south of the tracks. Parking there, I crossed the tracks and found my “spot” to get the image I was visualizing. The big red depot with the black locomotive chugging past.
My selected location using a Metra train as a stand in model.
About 20 minutes before Big Boy was to roll through, a long freight trains pulled past, four locomotives in front and half way back another two pushing. It got about 3/4 of the way past and came to a dead stop. It continued to stay right there blocking traffic on the road and of course my great view of the depot. So much for my great image and probably no view at all of the Big Boy as it might be on the track on the far side of the freight train. Those of us on our side of the tracks held out hope that the Big Boy would use the track on our side of the freight train. As time passed, another freight train pulled up alongside of the already stopped train and also stopped So we knew that we lucked out and would have the Big Boy on our side, but no red depot in the background.
When I first arrived, I also set up my iPhone on a small tripod about 5 feet from the tracks with intention of getting some video. This turned out to be the best move, since my images with my still camera were not as good as the ones from 2019, but the video turned out well.
As I looked at the video, I remarked that it was a fun video but I sure wished I could have gotten my visualized image with the depot. Sue said, “you could probably have AI do it for you.” Never plant the seed in my brain!!!!
I took an image of the depot, but it had a big end loader excavator next to the building spoiling the view. Using Photoshop AI I removed the yellow excavator to clean up the view of the depot. Then from the images from 2019, I took one of Big Boy steaming to Malta, only it was headed West and this year it was headed East. I flipped the image but also had to copy and flip the numbers and seal on the front so they were not reversed. Then I asked Photoshop to generate Big Boy in front of the depot and the resulting image is below.
Background Image Image from 2019 headed East East image flipped to head West
The front of the generated locomotive didn't look exactly like Big Boy, so I went back to Photoshop and copied the front of Big Boy and added it to look more authentic. So now I have the image that I envisioned! Sue's comment..."Fake Picture!"
What do I take away from this? 1. Your best concepts might not go as planned because of factors not in your control (stopped freight trains.) 2. Don't get bummed out, but take what comes your way (nice video.) 3. Be creative and use the tools available to you (Photoshop and AI.) 4. Have fun and explore new ideas (I haven't used much AI but was willing to try something new.) 5. Always question what you see and/or hear as it may not be as it seems (AI is coming into more and more of our daily lives.)