Uhm

“Eat your heart out no art guy,” said a good friend of mine who once, like me, drove transit bus.
I guess I set him off describing his model-railroad equipment as “toy trains.”
(I used that description to avoid “N-gaugers,” which I thought another wouldn’t understand. His model-railroad equipment is N-gauge.)
As a railfan I’d do a layout myself, except they collect dust.
Plus they aren’t realistic, their appeal in the first place. They can’t be.
To properly model a railroad ya need an airport-hanger. Model-railroad curvature is way tighter than what real railroading could operate. It has to fit — often a four-by-eight sheet of plywood.
Feeling I’m an “artist” is recent. It contradicts over 70 years of being convinced I was stupid and rebellious.
I don’t wanna delve into that; that’s a sob-story. Fodder for boring blogs; what many are.
In my humble opinion, thinking of myself as an “artist” is partly an ego-trip. But not a superiority-gig.
I hafta be confident of my artistic judgment, so when some critic badmouths what I’ve done, I know better.
I’m confident in what I do. Their negative opinion just happens to disagree with mine. The final judge of what I do is ME.
This has been a long time coming. For years I was convinced I was inferior.
I see it happening. “If that brochure is mine, we ain’t usin’ no cheesy Xerox map!”
RE: Background color for my annual train-calendar:
-Green? “No. Looks wussy.”
-Gray? “This is a color calendar.”
-Navy Blue? “Maybe.”
-Dayglo spaghetti? “What you been smokin’, dude?”
-Red? “There it is!”
RE: Font-choice for that calendar:
-“Nope; looks awful.”
-“No again.”
-“There it is!”
RE: Font-color:
-Black? “Absolutely not!”-
-White: “Looks pretty good.”
-Any other color: “Has to be white.”
Same thing with photo choice. I pore through the hundreds of train-photos my brother and I took.
“Whoa dude; we’re usin’ that one.”
It’s artistic judgment, and I happen to be doing it.
It’s even extending to photo set-up. I imagine a final result, then try to assemble it.
“Has to be about 2 p.m. for light, and has to be a semi-Cirrus sky. Strident sunlight won’t work.”
A friend is correct to say photography ain’t art, at least regarding equipment and operation thereof.
Another friend told me picking out successes from the 89 bazilyun pictures I took, is being an artist.
“Looky-looky! Nothing but trees in the background; no sky to distract. What a shot!”


(Photo by BobbaLew.)

(The photo below was very much planned.)


(Photo by BobbaLew.)

(So was this.)


(Photo by BobbaLew.)

(Very much not-planned. A “Shaddup-and-shoot.”)


(Photo by my brother Jack.)

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that 11 years ago.
• “N-gauge” is model-railroad track 9 mm (0.354 inches) between rails. That’s smaller than HO, which is 16.5 mm (0.64961 inches) between the rails. HO is more popular, but requires more space.