Amtrak Winter Adventure January 23-31, 2017

Just one week until I fly Nashville to Chicago to embark on my Amtrak Winter Adventure riding Amtrak's California Zephyr to Emeryville and after a couple days taking Amtrak's Coast Starlight from Emeryville to Los Angeles. I have published my first blog update for this trip which is a preview of the trip and a link to photos I took on my similar Winter Adventure last January 2016. Here is the link to my preview blog post: Amtrak Winter Adventure January 23-31, 2017 . I am really excited to experience the abundance of snow as I cross the Colorado Rockies and California Sierra Nevadas which has had record snow fall this January - enough that Amtrak was unable to cross the Sierra Nevadas for a few days. Hopefully, my train makes it across the Sierra Nevadas.

Several of my fellow Amtrak Unlimited members have already signed up to get my blog posts by email. I invite any who would like to follow me by email, to look for the sign up link on my blog and sign up. It's easy and you can unsubscribe any time. I maintain a photography website Reagan's Photo Galleries and began the blog as a way to notify my family and friends when I add and update new photo galleries. The home page header photo was taken on my trip through Colorado near Grandby in October 2016.

Looking forward to this Reagan

How did the trip go?

Palmetto said:

How did the trip go?

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Click on Reagan's Photo Galleries in his post, and you can read all about his trip. That's what I did. Lots of nice pictures and a good description of his journey.

I followed this closely and enjoyed the email updates with some quite frankly stunning photos.

I look forward to the next instalment, thanks Reagan

I got home Tuesday and am working on updating over 700 photos in seven galleries and should have them completed in a few days. Trip was fantastic and all trains on or ahead of time. Still I was inadvertently "disrupted" by the protest marches at LAX airport last Sunday night. Had to walk over a mile to get to my hotel. I flew home Tuesday from LAX to Nashville. I'll do a blog update to let my subscribers know that the photos are on my photo gallery website. If you don't get that blog in your email scroll back in this forum topic and you can find the links to both the blog and my on line photo galleries.

The photo galleries of this trip are posted. CLICK HERE to see the "wrap up" blog post my email subscribers will receive overnight tonight February 4-5, 2017. Within the blog are links to all my photo galleries and just to the seven galleries documenting this trip.

Always enjoy the pictures. Thanks.

Reagan, the 6th photo from the end of your Coast Starlight trip (Santa Barbara station?), the one after the sunset photo is the best Amtrak rail travel photo ever for me, it just about says everything that's good and enjoyable about riding Amtrak trains. Congrats on another good looking rail journey, look forward to seeing more in the future.

ps: when you are taking a photo aboard a train, how far from the window do you hold the camera lens as you appear to avoid reflection most of the time

Thanks.

V.V. Thanks for your comment about the photo I took at the Santa Barbara station. I do try to portray life in my photos when possible.

When I am taking pictures from inside the train, I avoid taking photos in the lounge car and almost always take my photos from inside my roomette or bedroom. I do hold my camera as close to the window as possible since every Amtrak window is immensely dusty outside. In addition, I closed my door to the hallway and pull the curtains and even move pillows to avoid their reflection. I also avoid talking photos looking into the sun. I was very fortunate to be sitting on the side of the train in which the sun was behind me. Also, I take enough photos so that I can and do delete the bad shots. After all of that, when I get home I clean up every photo by using photo optimizer software)Ashampoo Photo Optimizer) to optimize each photo. Then I arrange the photo in to different galleries and use Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 to label the photos and place them into galleries on my desktop hard drive. While doing this process I allow Photoshop Elements to color correct and sharpen each photo. So there is more than just taking the photo and posting it to my gallery.

Thanks for explaining your methods, always thought that to get a whole series of good photos took a lot of effort and skill.

Do you know of a simple and maybe free photo resizer that I could download onto a notebook, not taking a full size laptop on next trip as we have to travel very light this time.

Thank you

vv, i don't use my laptop on the train but in hotels where I stay overnight. I simply use my IPhone if I want to take and post photos on Facebook and also do mini blog posts using the Blogger app on my IPhone. If you read my blog, you have seen those mini blogs while I was actually on the train.

I don't actually have any software I use to resize photos. I have used such in the past and you might try this Windows tool at http://www.picresize.com/ or google "photo resize" and there are a bunch. It is that I just that I don't use any of them. If you are referring to a "tablet", I don't have many apps at all on my Samsung Nook 7 Inch tablet which I use mainly for ereader but do use gmail and chrome browser. I use my Iphone more that I use the tablet since the tablet is wifi only.

Now a days, I tend to want to "leave all the daily PC things I do and news, etc" at home and get away from them. I guess that why I was surprised when I got to LAX and discovered the protesters had disrupted the approach to the airport terminals and I ended up having to walk a mile to my hotel on Sunday night July 29. Even now at home, I refrain from watching national news. Just don't need to fret about things I have no control over.

For travelling we use a Sony bridge camera using a large format for when we get home and want to do something with a few of our photos. The idea was to try to post a few photos here using our notebook to download to, but they are probably too large for the forum. Being able to reduce the photos size simply and easily is the aim.

Politics appears to have turned into a reality show on both sides of the Atlantic, we have to follow the Brexit twists and turns as we have a home in the UK and France, and one way or another it's going to affect us seriously.

Thanks again

One correction to my post. While I don't have any simple free resizing apps that I use, I can and do use the resize option on my Adobe Photoshop Elements software which I do recommend but it is definitely not free.

You set me on a search Reagan for a photo re-sizing app and found one that is already there in Windows, it's paint. Tried it on W7 and W10 and works the same in both, just use the resize option.

Wow, I have never known this. I checked and, yes, I have Paint listed as one of my accessories in Windows 7. I opened it and the opened window looks very similar to my Photoshop Elements 10. Thanks, I never know when this might come in handy. I hope you are successful in using it. Since it is winter here, it seems like a very long wait until my next Amtrak trip April 8. But I sure hope the weather caused track problems in the Western USA are better by then. Apparently, the Zephyr is running only between Chicago and Salt Lake City for the next week(s) or so while Union Pacific repairs washed out tracks in Nevada around Elko.

After all the help I get on this forum it good to be able to give a little info back