The Thrill of the Chase
Category: Visual Art
Author(s): Emma Winters
Presenter(s): Emma Winters
This past summer, I spent a week in Texas, doing what every college student dreams of: chasing trains. When I went to intern with my uncle, I didn’t expect to be driving 90 miles per hour while trying to catch up with a train, but his passion for them is so strong that it led us there. For four days, we roadtripped up the Texas Panhandle, driving from Austin and almost reaching Amarillo. We followed the train tracks through small towns with my Canon EOS 6D Mark II camera by my side, stopping when we heard a train coming or saw it in the distance. The routine became simple: drive until you see a train, flip a U-turn and book it, outrunning it until the train is out of sight. You set your aperture, shutter speed and ISO, stand thirty feet away from the tracks and shoot away. If I wasn’t photographing or waiting on trains, then I was exploring small Texas towns, marveling at the grain elevators and architecture. So many times, we focus on all the science of the world that we forget to just stop and marvel at the beauty around us. In this photo essay, I display the backbone of American culture and expansion, proving that not only does our country run on trains, but it also stands as an understated line of art.