Honey Salvadori-- Hits a Home Run

"I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it." -- Author unknown

"Citizen journalism is about being in the right place at the right time." --Honey Salvadori

"Professional photography is about having the insight and analysis to know how to report a story and get beyond the superficial."  --Honey Salvadori

 Yesterday, over 2100 viewers submitted their photos to a local Fox News station. More yet came into the archives of the ABC and NBC and CBS affiliates.

But the real story did not come from the network affiliates rather, they came from the TxDot cameras that the affiliates aired or were pulled up on personal computers, notebooks and iphones in the hands of individuals. First came a day of sleet, freezing fog, mixed with freezing rain. That was a typical Texas nightmare on the roads. The next day came the light, fluffy, powder dry snow fall. That was just a pure nighmarish experience amplified.

Even the television stations put their "Reed Timmer" type "Intimedator" trucks on the road. Driving from miles south to miles north of the metroplex only to find that the 40-car pileup was only 17-car and later confirmed to be 15 cars total. Well, I guess if you count the two semi-tractor trailer rigs in the mess, the 17 number would hold water. But the TxDot cameras were the thing to watch. Seeing adult men and women on 2-3-4 and even 5 high tier flyways stuck-- get out of their cars-- and walk around on the roadways of major interstate highways was insane. To make things even more insane was to see cars turn around on the ramps and drive in the opposite direction thinking that they were going to get down and out of their current situation. Even police cars. Others, just choose to put their cars in reverse and back down the ramps with on-coming traffic coming at them.

Nothing proved to me more about how to spend federal highway dollars more usefully than this past Friday afternoon at the movies watching all that unfold. What needs to settle over any area that has traffic problems albeit congestion, winter weather, tornados, floods, hurricane, sandstorms or landslides is a massive educational program. It is obvious that there is little common in common sense. Too many school children have been graduated with 12-years of political correctness, wording of the pledge of allegiance, bringing cupcakes to school, dress codes, not allowed to bring medication and turn it over to the school nurse, or which teacher should be allowed to carry a handgun rather than teaching the basic reading, {W}riting and {A}rithmetic in school.

No one can get beyond the superficial anymore. One can have all the insight that there is to have but unless there is a fundamental element of not just having a degree but have a whole lot more  (and I mean more) thought of insight as to what to do with it once it is awarded, society becomes  more diluted. We really are not as smart as we think we are. It's a falsehood of education, big time. Take the teacher that must use her own money to buy supplies for her class verses the coach at the school that doesn't have to worry about outfitting his team with the latest fashions from feet to head and top to bottom. What is wrong with our educational system? How did we get so far off the basics?

I didn't have to use a single expressway ramp!!

I haven't been as cold talking pictures as I was with this one!

It's a known fact that photography sharpens and trains the eye. A photographer begins to look at the world much differently later on than early on, but it all starts at the very beginning of picking up a camera and looking through the view finder. As Honey said in her interview with Alamy, "citizen journalism is being in the right place at the right time", but seeing what you actually see, is a learned experience that most of us Americans are missing, while the rest of the world is not.

02March2015: corrected a previously edited sentence that did not remove the old error but incorporated it in the new correction.  "It's a known fact that photography training the eye." It should have read: "It's a known fact that photograph sharpens and trains the eye."

Making Train Watching More Interesting

MSDS placard UN2078  (Toluene diisocyanate)
White indicates an inhalation hazard or poison
2078 identifies the chemical Toluene diisocyanate
and the 6 in the lower triangle indicates poison/toxic solids and liquids,infectious materials



The placard is at eye level just before the front wheels. It must be posted on all four sides one time.


How many times have you been sitting at a rail crossing as an ever-so-slowly train creeps by.  You  found yourself and your mind somewhere between  Uranus or Jupiter and the deep dark voids of space while you waited for the crossing gates to go up. Well, there is a better way to remain sane, educate yourself and be better informed about the transportation industry; chemicals used to created the goods we use,or sometimes eat, and keep our self and family more safe.

A few months ago, there was a fire in a Waxahachie,Texas firm that mixed compounds for the manufacturing industry. While watching the aerial view from a Dallas television station, suddenly, one could see liquid running out of one side of the building down toward a fire truck. Within seconds, flames followed the liquid and it was a mad scramble for the firemen to get off and out of the truck before it was totally engulfed in fire and eventually,totally lost. As in most situations such as this, fire departments have MSDS or Material Safety Data Sheets on hand. During the reporting of the story, it became rather amusing for me to note that the reporters knew very little about MSDS sheets, if they knew what MSDS sheets were at all. In other words, here is a major story and while you can't know everything about everything.....you should be at lease informed in the basics of industry in the area where you work and live. In this case a rail spur to the plant passed between the plant and an elementary school (which was evacuated eventually). On that spur was parked nearly a dozen tank cars of chemicals used inside that plant with fire burning ever more close to the cars.

Yesterday,while waiting for a slow moving and very long train, this post began to take shape. My camera was on the passenger seat of the car, as it always is when I leave the house. This particular train was going to the only siding that I know that can park such a long train all in one piece until it is broken up and reassembled.later. So, I headed in that direction. Sure enough. There sat the train on a two mile lone siding.

Hazardous Material Placards are required to be on all four sides of a tank car, covered hopper,gondola,box or inter modal container by the Department of Transportation. Placards are Red,green,yellow,blue,white,black and white,red and white,red and white dangerous,orange,white and black stripe. Each differently colored placard identifies the cargo (i.e., red -flammable;green,non-flammable;yellow,oxidizer;blue,dangerous when wet;white,inhalation hazard and poison;black and white,corrosive (acid and caustic);red and white,flammable solid or spontaneous combustible;white and yellow,RADIO ACTIVE  or radiation ;orange,Explosives;white and black strip,Misc. Hazards).

So, watch for the placards as trains go by,note a number or color and when you get home, check it out with the DOT ERG or Department of Transportation Emergency Guidebook, which you can download on the web. You will be amazed, or  minimally amused, at what hazardous chemicals are in your own backyard.  And, if you are one of the young reporters at a major market television station, take one of those Saturday afternoons that isn't to good weather wise and go look around your town where the closest Starbucks is six miles in the other direction. You might get picked up by the networks more quickly than your co-worker. Look at Bob Orr, from WCMH in Columbus,Ohio. His knowledge of the prison system landed him a full time network reporter job for the big CBS eye because he knew what he was talking about when the big story broke!
This posting is heading toward a project for the winter months. The project will be to identify and post as many chemical hazards in the Dallas area as possible. Now, all I have to do is talk my editors into publishing all the placards that I photograph over the winter months.