Railway lines are a great way to lead into a photo, although, you do normally need permission to be on them! This was taken at a charter on the Ribble Steam Railway in Preston, and  I got down low, to take the shot. With an increasing number of DSLR’s having live view on them, using this can take away the guesswork previously involved with shooting with the camera away from the eye.

Of course you don’t need to get down low. This one, taken at the same event, was from head height, but the glint on the track, the lack of any discernible detail around them, and the way the track splays out to the points of interest, makes it work in a different way.

A slight variation on this was taken at the steelworks at Scunthorpe from a brake van. Again, there’s no detail around the tracks, although that’s due to me seriously underexposing, then doing some major post-processing (lightening the glint on the track, burning in the background and sky, etc.)

Of course, this technique is not unique to this type of photography, it’s often used in more conventional landscape photography, although it is most effective when done with a wide angle lens, or even better, a super wide angle, i.e. less than 20mm (full frame).