I’ve seen photos of these abandoned train cars at night before, and I’ve always wanted to capture them myself. hat opportunity came last week when a friend asked where I’d like to go to shoot the Milky Way. I immediately suggested the train cars in Jacumba. I took two similar compositions of the train car and blended each one with the same Milky Way background. I titled them “The Early Train” and “The Late Train.”

The train car itself was photographed during blue hour, when there was still enough light to achieve a clean exposure. The night sky was captured close by, facing the same direction. This means the final composite represents what you would have actually seen if you were standing there—looking at the train with the Milky Way directly above it. Shooting the two separately allowed me to capture the sky unobstructed and made it easier to seamlessly combine with the train image.

After merging the images, I edited them with some artistic license to enhance the details that the camera was able to capture. I am often asked whether this is what I saw with my own eyes. The honest answer is no—the human eye cannot perceive the light and detail that a camera can record in these conditions.

Click are tap the image to enlarge.

Here is different view of the train and sky. The Milky Way in this section of sky was much less prominent.

Finally, here is a shot of the train and sky as they appeared toward the end of blue hour.

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