As the Year Draws to its Close

 Good evening!  Once again we're coming to a new year, and after the last few years we all know that we have a tremendous amount to be grateful for.  While loss and darkness always exist, light and hope balance these things, and keep us driving forward, whether we think we can, or not.

And so on this New Years Eve 2021, let's look mindfully at an image I made more than a decade ago.  

The story for you:  A perfect storm came together atop the Allegheny Mountains in 2010, and the resulting blizzard slammed operations on the former Pennsylvania Railroad mainline.  Snow was piling up amidst howling winds and by good fortune, we had been holed up ahead of the storm at The Station Inn in Cresson, PA, a few hundred feet from the main line.  Traffic died down even on this critical piece of railroad as the storm grew in intensity.

Hours later the scanner suddenly came alive over the din of late-light beverages and the clanking of steam-heat radiators in the 150-year-old building, and a few of us scrambled to suit up and grab our rigs, rushing out to the fury of a mountaintop storm.  We waded through snow to reach the embankment to record NS 6317 cutting west through the height of the blizzard after midnight on February 7, 2010. I decided on the old school pan shot - Hand-Held, F5.6, ISO 1000, 1/10th of a second...

And for us here on the eve of 2022, I will argue there is a lot to see.  Darkness and uncertainty ahead, but deliberate progress in a forward direction.  Light from its own source, not depending on outside help.  Movement, dynamic change guided by steel rails that are hidden from plain sight.  I find this hopeful, and I hope that you too will find a way forward into the new year, and that the best may still be yet to come.  

Happy New Year!