The other day on Facebook I posted a picture of a train. The back of my new office has a railway line next too the car park, and I snapped a train going past. Today I got a phone call out of the blue asking about the picture, and asking off my office was on the East Suffolk line. I said yes - it is indeed. He was a train fan and apparently an unusual train was heading my way - was there any chance I could get a camera and shoot it passing at 10:40. I looked at what I was doing (waiting for a big drive to copy to another - so I grabbed a couple of cameras, tripod and an umbrella as it was raining and did it for him. Dead on time, a single engine arrived and headed south. Driver training, apparently. What gets me is that my office address is not on any internet location I'm aware of - and the phone number and address you get on a search is my home - not the office/studio. I guess he must have recognised the location. The power of the internet is amazing sometimes!

Does the image contain the time it was taken in the metadata? Any other data like copyright and contact info?

Id not thought about that? I'll check but I suspect there are more trainspotters around than I thought!

And the offending loco?

Ron

ps former train - spotter in the days of steam

https://youtu.be/d-ZGfIQ-d0E

Here you go.

I also got a similar call. The guy said my wife was coming out of the shower at 10:10 and asked if there was any chance I could grab a camera and get a picture of it. I don't know how he knew it was about to happen, but he sure liked the pictures.

Didn't the steam fog the lens, other than that, can't see a problem in these covid times any income stream is better than none.

deleted deleted

I've heard in Southern California there are more of those types of jobs. ;-)

I heard the exposure really was terrific this time.

Andrew

https://youtu.be/d-ZGfIQ-d0E

Here you go.

Nice albeit a diesel!

Ron

I also got a similar call. The guy said my wife was coming out of the shower at 10:10 and asked if there was any chance I could grab a camera and get a picture of it. I don't know how he knew it was about to happen, but he sure liked the pictures.

Got the same call. Thing is, I’m not married and he called me “Stanley”.

Ok made that up but I really do get a lot of robo texts where they address me as Stanley.

Maybe Stanley is the male version of Karen. They are insulting you by long distance and you don't even know it.

Oh great. So in addition to stealing my data they know about my love of requesting to talk to managers.

The other day on Facebook I posted a picture of a train. The back of my new office has a railway line next too the car park, and I snapped a train going past. Today I got a phone call out of the blue asking about the picture, and asking off my office was on the East Suffolk line. I said yes - it is indeed. He was a train fan and apparently an unusual train was heading my way - was there any chance I could get a camera and shoot it passing at 10:40. I looked at what I was doing (waiting for a big drive to copy to another - so I grabbed a couple of cameras, tripod and an umbrella as it was raining and did it for him. Dead on time, a single engine arrived and headed south. Driver training, apparently. What gets me is that my office address is not on any internet location I'm aware of - and the phone number and address you get on a search is my home - not the office/studio. I guess he must have recognised the location. The power of the internet is amazing sometimes!
Ummm..... me thinks he was a client of the guy with the office above and found out about your operation that way, and, to contact you, um... a retired MI5 (or is that M15?) guy who moved to your sleepy town from London?

Spooky!

I've been quite careful to NOT promote the office address as I've always worked from home, and Google know me there. However - Facebook is clearly better than I thought. In fact, today I got fed up with the taxi that has been parked there for two weeks in the space for one of our vehicles, and today I put a photo of it on a local town Facebook group. I've had an irate taxi company owner angry because he cannot tell me the drivers name, who doesn't work for him any longer due to our data protection laws. but I've had a friend of his get in touch to say it's being sorted. Social media really does have power. Of course I also got called names, moaned at for being precious and all that stuff too - but if the car gets removed, it's cool with me!

Paul, an active train track behind you new studio! Holy crap...i worry about the hum of office CPUs and air handling systems. A train takes that to a whole new level. Bells, sirens, whistles, and tons of metal rolling on steal track. Are you kidding me? Do you have to keep image stabilisation on when shooting from sticks? Do your lights flicker and sway for that old parlor look. Are your low pass filters cranked up like the gain on a cheap pocket recorder? Do you love the smell of creosote permeating your studio in the morning? Have you started shooting "B" movies and the trains enhance the audio track. Somehow a black and white image of a fair damsel in distress tied to the tracks keeps coming to mind. Do you know the regular schedule so when the long freightliner comes through you just go to lunch? In my audio kit there is many pads and filters, none of them say LOCOMOTIVE on them!

Just kidding. I hope your new space is working out well for you!

Kind Regards,

Steve

Well - my sound studio is luckily at home where it's been for years, but the new studio is normally video, but of course yesterday we were doing talking heads. Studio to railway track is probably 20m, maybe a bit less, and the trains are actually all new, and fairly quiet, so the only thing I can hear when it's quiet is the crossing siren.

One of the computers is enough to prevent the siren being heard - I often see the trains through the office window rather than hear it.

Audio wise I actually have more trouble with noise from the lights. I don't have any way to get rid of hot air created by the tungsten lights so, I'm now using my stock of theatre LED lighting, which actually looks pretty good, but all has fans for cooling and they can be heard on the radio mics if there is silence. Seems OK when it's busy, speaking wise.