Warm things to think about while the tip of your nose freezes and falls off.

Shooting outdoor portraits in natural light seems easy, right, especially on a sunny day. Well, it may be easy to shoot them, but you won’t, necessarily, get flattering shots if you don’t know how to use the sun to your advantage.

Practically any analog camera can be pressed into service as a street camera—the late great Weegee used a 4x5 Speed Graphic to expose the seamy and sentimental sides of New York City, and the incomparable Vivian Maier stalked the streets of Chicago with a twin-lens Rolleiflex. But when it comes to discreet shooting on the fly, nothing can quite match a 35mm rangefinder camera as proven by the timeless work of countless photojournalists over the past 90 years.

Creating photo books on American railroads are a good part of my workload, so telephoto lenses are what I often turn to for my train photography. Extremely heavy and often dangerous, locomotives and rolling stock require a wide berth for safety’s sake. Furthermore, in the wake of the September 11th attacks, security has tightened around railroad property, demanding more distance between the photographer and subject.