"Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!"
It since it's debut in 1952, it's been a quote that's defined Superman for generations. Call it fan service but, when Richard Donner directed the first live action movie, it's a scene that had to be adapted to the screen. Despite being nearly 2 and a half hours long, having a complicated heist plot, an origin story, and all of the other beats that needed to be placed into the movie meant that pure fan service had to be condensed as much as possible. Showing the teenage Clark Kent racing a train combines the two lines into "faster than a speeding locomotive." It's instantly iconic.
A textbook image that highlights the rule of thirds. The horizon lies exactly on the bottom-third line, the front of the train is perfectly on the right-third, while Kent and the rail-crossing sign, when considered together, straddle the left-third line. And those two have to be considered together. Both are the same height. Both are thin with spindly appendages sticking from them.
Composition is about more than just the placement of images within the frame. It's about what is in in the frame in the first place. Consider the crossing sign. It doesn't need to be there. We see the train about to intersect with the road, and know there's a crossing without the sign needing to tell us. So, why is it there, disrupting the horizon and drawing attention to itself by being near the center of the image?
Being between Clark and the train does two things: first, it separates two from each other, as if it is a referee holding back two fighters before a match. Second, the intersection of the two planks of the sign form a pair of arrows pointing towards each other, subliminally creating the message that Clark and the train will collide. Compare the frame with the edited image below:
While the image might be cleaner without the crossing sign, the sense of tension isn't as strong and we want the image to have as much power as possible, especially if Superman is supposed to be more powerful than a locomotive.
The harsh natural light of the mid-day sun is typically a challenge to photograph. It's unflattering to faces and exposing for the harsh shadows can risk over-exposing the highlights. However here, not only does Clark face away from the camera, the flat fields of Kansas have nothing to cast a shadow. This leaves the daylight sun to brighten the scene and create a feeling of hope, of joy.
A blue backpack, red shirt, yellow (tan) pants, they're Superman's color's and, even though he's in his Clark Kent persona, he's showcasing his super speed. Additionally, the red shirt, paired with the red train, pop against the muted blue background, clearly identifying our subjects.