Our next presentation for Virtual Conversations premieres on YouTube at 8pm Central Time on Friday, April 17. “Beautiful Fragility: Railroad Cinematography in the Pacific Northwest,” is an interview with filmmaker Camron Settlemier of Marcam Productions about his quarter-century quest to record the dying branch lines and short line railroads of the Pacific Northwest.
While still in college, Camron got his first video camera to capture the last summer of the Southern Pacific In Oregon. For the next thirteen years he put all available time, money and resources to pursue his interest in railroad videography, capturing some of the most vulnerable and interesting short lines and branch lines in the Pacific Northwest. They include the Camas Prairie, Saint Maries River, and Port of Tillamook, all which are now out of service. Camron is also known for professional Steam Videos, first working with Goodheart Productions, and later forming his own video company, Marcam Productions. In 2007 Marcam Productions was the first to release a steam railfan video in the US on High Definition Blu-ray, the “Legends of Steam” series. Today Camron subsists in his hometown of Albany, Oregon, and dreams of inventing a time machine to go back to a period of time worth videoing.
Learn more about Virtual Conversations, the Center’s first-ever online conference.
The Saint Maries River Railroad hauls logs to the mill in Saint Maries, Idaho, along its namesake river in October 2006. Photograph by Camron Settlemier
