Under a Watchful Eye...

Under a Watchful Eye...

I’m sure each of the four children, under the watchful eye of … grandfather, perhaps?... was
fascinated by getting up close and personal with this SNCB (Belgian State Railways) electric
locomotive, which has just brought its train into the seaport station of Oostende.

But it was the animated stance of the little guy in the white shirt that caught my eye. He knew just how close
he could get to the edge of the platform before being admonished to step back, and he clearly intended
to use every last centimeter to get as close as he could to that wondrous machine.

In rediscovering the color slide taken on this afternoon in 1984, I was taken by just how
timeless a scene it was…one that has played out for as long as little boys and locomotives
have coexisted on the planet…and chose to present it in a more nostalgic format.

Sometimes a photographer even sees himself in a scene he is capturing. A different country, a different
decade, but I was definitely there on that station platform, probably striking that very same excited pose ;-)

The image is available as a custom printed Photo Note Card.

Photo + Design © Steve Ember