Train

In a town full of nothing to do, trapped between the run down council estates and the railway line I wander aimlessly with my camera in hand.

Give me something, anything even slightly interesting to shoot. Please!

Of course, nothing comes. The answer from the universe is absolute in its absence.

Make your own interest it says from the silence. Suffer for your art. It is right, of course.

I consider wandering beyond the edges of the council houses and the industrial estate and onward towards the estuary. There's nothing there either, just a moonscape of rocks and mud.

The river will be a ribbon in the distance and I have the wrong lens on the camera to reach the wading birds who don't mind wet feet. Even if I do find nothing to shoot that I haven't photographed a hundred times before, I will perhaps still feel better for the gentle exercise.

I reach the crossing at the edge of the industrial estate. The barrier is down, a train must be coming soon. The silence that would exist, should exist in this moment, is ruined by the roar of the motorway a half mile in the distance.

I fiddle with my camera settings. I wonder what might result if I shoot the oncoming commuter train with a long exposure.

The train thunders by. The ground vibrates under the weight of the massive machine and I feel the rumble through my feet.

I brace myself and hold as still as I can, hoping that any movement I make will be compensated by IBIS.

The train passes into the distance, onward to the cities beyond, the momentary bawl of turbo chargers, diesel-electric generators and the rhythmic crash of steel wheels on rails fades into the familiar and unwelcome din of high speed rubber on tarmac from the omnipresent M4.

I decide to go home to process the image. I feel a sense of having at least done something, taken a shot and turned boredom into a mild achievement.

It isn't a great shot. The exposure was too long and all my highlights are blown. I load it into Lightroom anyway and fiddle about with a few sliders and settings, pretending to myself that I know what I'm doing. It looks more like a painting than a photograph, but in a way I'm still pleased with it.

It will never be amazing, but it will always be a reminder of the day, that even when there's nothing interesting to shoot, there's still something to shoot. And a lesson that failure is never final. It's just up to me how I decide to shoot it and to learn from my past errors.