Life Aboard Amtrak

[HenryK]

I thought this was rather appealing.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-secret-lives-of-amtrak-passengers

 

[Bob Dylan]

Interesting Henry!Thanks for sharing.

What train is the Aristocrat, that sounds like something pre-Amtrak??

 

[HenryK]

Must be this one:

http://streamlinermemories.info/?p=4684

I suspect the writer reached into memory for the Adirondack but came up with Aristocrat instead.

 

[Walt]

What train is the Aristocrat, that sounds like something pre-Amtrak??

Aristocrat are G-scale model trains.

 

[fairviewroad]

The first photo caption refers to the California Zephyr passing through "Green River, Wyoming."

There IS a Green River, Wyoming...and when the CZ is on its occasional detour through Wyoming, it does pass through Green River. But I think it's far more likely that the photo in question was taken in Green River, Utah, which is on the CZ's regular route.

My other quibble with this project is that the photos only depict life on LD trains. I realize it's not billed as an exhaustive documentary of Amtrak, but why not include some Bay Area commuters...or some high-flying Acela first class passengers...or your basic NER workaday passenger...or for that matter, perhaps someone relaxing in a sleeping car. Not everyone on Amtrak looks like they've just spent the last two nights sleeping in coach. :huh:

 

[oregon pioneer]

The photo of the young orange-haired woman, that claims to be on the Southwest Chief, is clearly on a bus on a freeway.

Interesting faces. You do see some of everything in coach.

 

[user 6862]

We're in San Francisco in mid September and will make a point of visiting. The exhibition subjects of Amtrak travel and people on board trains (however well it is done) are exactly why we do it, can't wait.

And thank you Henry

 

[Manny T]

The slideshow is fantastic. This is definitely the Amtrak I see all the time, through the faces of the people.

Kudos to the photographer. And to HenryK for bringing it to our attention.

 

[CoachSlumber]

Is the "Southwest Chief" photo really on the Chief? Looks like a bus.

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

I can only imagine the reporter sent out to do this story had no clue whatsoever what Amtrak (at least Long Distance) is all about and she did not do adequate research before finalizing her copy.

 

[Manny T]

Here's another appreciation of the work of the photographer, McNair Evans (he): http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/mcnair-evans-train-journeys

He isn't a reporter sent out to do a story. He's a photographer working in a fine arts tradition. He's making portraits of people, trying to capture their inner feelings through their expressions and their surroundings.

The series isn't about Amtrak, it's about the dislocation and anticipation of travel. If the caption gets a detail wrong, like saying the girl is on the Southwest Chief instead of a connecting bus, I think we should give the photographer a pass. It's not ethnography, it's photography.

Btw the name of the series is not "Life Aboard Amtrak," it's "In Search of Great Men."

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

Here's another appreciation of the work of the photographer, McNair Evans (he): http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/mcnair-evans-train-journeys

He isn't a reporter sent out to do a story. He's a photographer working in a fine arts tradition. He's making portraits of people, trying to capture their inner feelings through their expressions and their surroundings.

The series isn't about Amtrak, it's about the dislocation and anticipation of travel. If the caption gets a detail wrong, like saying the girl is on the Southwest Chief instead of a connecting bus, I think we should give the photographer a pass. It's not ethnography, it's photography.

Btw the name of the series is not "Life Aboard Amtrak," it's "In Search of Great Men."

Whatever

 

[fairviewroad]

Here's another appreciation of the work of the photographer, McNair Evans (he): http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/mcnair-evans-train-journeys

He isn't a reporter sent out to do a story. He's a photographer working in a fine arts tradition. He's making portraits of people, trying to capture their inner feelings through their expressions and their surroundings.

The series isn't about Amtrak, it's about the dislocation and anticipation of travel. If the caption gets a detail wrong, like saying the girl is on the Southwest Chief instead of a connecting bus, I think we should give the photographer a pass. It's not ethnography, it's photography.

Btw the name of the series is not "Life Aboard Amtrak," it's "In Search of Great Men."

Whatever

I think Manny T makes a fair point. Some of the mistakes appear to be the fault of the New Yorker, not the photographer.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Let's remember that with the ongoing hard times in the media ( especially mags and newspapers) the researchers are probably interns that received poor educatuons! Check out "Water's World" on The O'Reily Show on Fox ( not my favorite but its the Best thing in Fox)for people in tbe Street that don't have a clue!

 

[andersone]

Wonderful photographs tell a marvelous story no matter how moronic the captions may be

 

[HenryK]

The intensity of finger-wagging rivet-counting on this forum's foamer spectrum is amazing.

I do think the New Yorker's vaunted fact-checkers do the job only for the magazine and not for the Web blogs.

It's also possible that the bus picture was miscaptioned by the photographer's catalog writer. Maybe even the Aristocrat reference.

 

[user 6862]

Hello Henry

I think the foamer comment was a little unfair as many here pride themselves on attention to detail in all things Amtrak, so it's a natural way for them to respond. You gave us a great link to Amtrak subjects (people and photography) which I guess many but not all will find riveting.

Not sure if this phrase is used in the US but 'each to their own'

No offence meant, just an opinion

 

[JoeBas]

The intensity of finger-wagging rivet-counting on this forum's foamer spectrum is amazing.

I'm not entirely sure I consider confusing a bus and a train "Rivet Counting"...

 

[MikefromCrete]

Here's another appreciation of the work of the photographer, McNair Evans (he): http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/mcnair-evans-train-journeys

He isn't a reporter sent out to do a story. He's a photographer working in a fine arts tradition. He's making portraits of people, trying to capture their inner feelings through their expressions and their surroundings.

The series isn't about Amtrak, it's about the dislocation and anticipation of travel. If the caption gets a detail wrong, like saying the girl is on the Southwest Chief instead of a connecting bus, I think we should give the photographer a pass. It's not ethnography, it's photography.

Btw the name of the series is not "Life Aboard Amtrak," it's "In Search of Great Men."

Whatever

Manny T. makes a good point. Blowing him off with a "Whatever" is down right rude.

 

[Manny T]

Yes Mike I've been whatever'd. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whatever%27d

On an Unlimited Discussion forum no less!

I may have to take my forum business elsewhere!

 

[CoachSlumber]

Here's another appreciation of the work of the photographer, McNair Evans (he): http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/mcnair-evans-train-journeys

He isn't a reporter sent out to do a story. He's a photographer working in a fine arts tradition. He's making portraits of people, trying to capture their inner feelings through their expressions and their surroundings.

The series isn't about Amtrak, it's about the dislocation and anticipation of travel. If the caption gets a detail wrong, like saying the girl is on the Southwest Chief instead of a connecting bus, I think we should give the photographer a pass. It's not ethnography, it's photography.

Btw the name of the series is not "Life Aboard Amtrak," it's "In Search of Great Men."

Except that the New Yorker is known--or was--for fact-checking EVERYTHING.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

The photographs are beautiful and fascinating, and the photographer obviously puts a great deal of thought and detail into his work.

The mistake in the caption would most likely not be his fault--that would be another department. In the days of professional journalism, someone would have been responsible for making sure that it was correct.

The fact that even a respected publication like the New Yorker got a basic fact wrong is a reflection of "journalism" today, where fact checking is skipped so the article can be produced faster (so that nobody beats them to it online, for example).

I can't read the newspaper anymore without getting really annoyed: basic facts, basic spelling, basic sentence construction, all often wrong. (As any of you who have read more than a couple of my posts will guess, I blame the smartphone and all that texting of acronyms for this, of course, but I admit there may be other contributing factors as well.)

The bright side for me is that, as an editor, I will have as much work as I want for as long as I want it!

 

[CoachSlumber]

The intensity of finger-wagging rivet-counting on this forum's foamer spectrum is amazing.

I do think the New Yorker's vaunted fact-checkers do the job only for the magazine and not for the Web blogs.

It's also possible that the bus picture was miscaptioned by the photographer's catalog writer. Maybe even the Aristocrat reference.

I don't consider myself a foamer; my "finger-wagging" is done from my perspective of a journalist who tries to get facts right in my own job. I hardly consider pointing out that in a photo piece about train travel, one of the photos is actually taken aboard a bus, to be rivet counting. (I wouldn't know what rivets to count anyway).

 

[haolerider]

Nitpicking is always a treacherous slope, especially if you are someone looking for details. I just finished reading a novel that had two characters taking the Meteor to New York - in what was called a Suite. One character neded to get rid of a cell phone, so "he opened the window in the Suite and threw the phone away"! Now do I send the author/publisher a note about the mistake, or do I just let it slide. Letting it slide is easier and the author/publisher probably doesn't really care!

In the case of the photographer making a few mistakes on labeling pictures....so what? He is not a reporter, nor was he doing a story about Amtrak. His focus was "people" and from what I saw, he achieved his goal!

Sometimes this forum goes "off track" and focuses on minor items and loses track of the original purpose of the initial post. If that pertains to you, my only suggestion is to "take a deep breath and relax". It will save your high blood pressure problems!

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

haolerider--

I get paid to look for details and nitpick, so I enjoy doing it at work. However, I do see your point about looking for mistakes everywhere. I've seen typos on signs in museums and libraries and other places that are supposed to be for people to learn. I used to point them out, but now there are so many that I just don't bother.

A good editor should have caught the errors in that novel. I would have stopped reading it at that point, because there would be no enjoyment for me in something with such sloppy research.

As I and a couple of others mentioned above, it would not have been the photographer's job or responsibility to get a caption right. He did beautiful work, and he was let down by the editor/fact checker/proofer or whoever was responsible for making sure there were no mistakes before the piece was published.

Finally, some of us do go off on tangents quite a bit, and I am one of the worst culprits :blush: . Sometimes, though, it can be very interesting and actually is one way to "take a deep breath and relax" and just see where the thread leads.