The Featured Photo

Santa Fe Moon

It's a chilly New Year's Eve in California's Central Valley and in 30 minutes a new year will sweep across the Western time zone resulting in an audible din echoing down every street within earshot.

It's December 31, 1990 and a full moon a' risin'. It's the second full moon to appear this month, thus qualifying it as an official "Blue Moon." According to t.v. reports, a Blue Moon occurring on a New Year's Eve is a rare event, as rare as The Pope in a Protestent church.

Seen with this rare Blue Moon is the main subject of this photo: Santa Fe B23-7 No. 6356, a 2,250 hp product of General Electric delivered to the Santa Fe Railway in 1978. As locomotives go, it's not particularly noteworthy. The B23-7 pioneered no new technology, didn't break any sales records at G.E. and wasn't even all that reliable!

But here it is: at Riverbank, California, on a New Year's Eve. A portrait of a roadswitcher, a blue-collar locomotive at rest on a quiet holiday evening with a Blue Moon shining overhead. In five years time the Santa Fe will merge with the BNSF and in 2003, the classic Santa Fe depot (in the second photo) will be destroyed by fire.

What this photo doesn't show is the passionate New Year's kiss this photographer received upon returning home.

Photo Details
Shot with a Nikon FM2 using a 24mm Nikkor lens. The moon was exposed first, handheld at 1/125th at f5.6. The camera was then mounted on a tripod and positioned for the main photo, exposed for 10 seconds at f5.6.