Category: Low Light Photography
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#638 – South Wales Road Trip Part 6 – Port Talbot
Following the relative disappointment of the steam covered scenes I photographed earlier, I found my hotel, rested up after a long drive and reviewed my photos from Hafodynyrys, Penallta and the steelworks, then went for something to eat. As I ate my tea, I glanced outside and noticed that the sky had cleared, the sun…
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#552 – A Decade of Industrial Photography – Final Reflections
I always used to worry that I’d run out of places and things to photograph. It’s not so much that I let my photography define my identity, as I enjoy the whole process of research, photographing, and processing my photographs. Over the past decade, my focus has moved away from urban exploration and more into…
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#541 – Review of the decade – 2010
The start of a new decade brings with it a certain degree of reflection, mainly along the lines of ‘f**k me where have the last eleven years gone’. Over the Christmas period I noticed that the papers and other media are full of reviews of the decade, so, slave to convention that I am, I…
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#509 – 500 Post Retrospective – More Railways
More from the East Lancs Railway, this time they are all from the works and yard at Buckley Wells in Bury. It’s not normally accessible unless you work there, but is sometimes open for group visits or for photographic night shoots which is where all these were taken. 60163 Tornado, 24th October 2010 70013 Oliver…
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#450 – Samsung Galaxy S7 Shoot – Crossness Pumping Station 3
And so down into the basement…. Well actually it’s not really a basement as such. Four triple expansion compound steam engines were installed into a new building adjacent to the original one in 1897 to provide additional pumping capacity, but these were removed not long after in 1913 and replaced with Crossley diesels.The diesel engines…
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#449 – Samsung Galaxy S7 Shoot – Crossness Pumping Station 2
Beam engines – f***ing big beam engines at that. Crossness is home to four huge beam engines – Victoria, Prince Consort, Albert Edward (the Prince of Wales) and Alexandra (the Princess of Wales). Prince Consort has been restored to full working condition and Prince Consort is now being worked on. At the other end of the…
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#448 – Samsung Galaxy S7 Shoot – Crossness Pumping Station 1
Crossness Pumping Station is somewhere I’ve wanted to go for years. The magnificent Kew may have a more central location, glossy website and some giant engines, but Crossness is a marvelous mixture of wrought iron, rust and symmetry that is incomparable. I was really blown away by the place. I trained as an engineer, I’m…
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#447 – Samsung Galaxy S7 Shoot – Caroline Gardens Chapel, London
So this was an interesting choice for the second location on our Samsung photoshoot. Caroline Gardens Chapel in Peckham is a small chapel that is rented out for ‘shabby chic’ weddings and other events. It’s not derelict as such, just maintained in a state of (aesthetic) decay to give the right ambience, and the pictures on the…
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#446 – Samsung Galaxy S7 Shoot – St.Clements Asylum, London
First location in London was the old St.Clements hospital on Bow Lane. Built in 1848-49 as a workhouse, it later became a psychiatric unit before closing in 2005. The site is now undergoing conversion by Linden Homes, and work had started to strip the place unfortunately. So I did what I always do in completely empty…
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#445 – Samsung Galaxy S7 Shoot – London Road Fire Station, Manchester – 3
Final selection from London Road. Not much else to say really that I haven’t already said. A word or two about the phone – yes, I was being paid to shoot these photographs, but that aside, I was very impressed. The HDR mode was immensely useful in these high contrast conditions, and the screen was fabulous.…
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#444 – Samsung Galaxy S7 Shoot – London Road Fire Station, Manchester – 2
London road fire station is an amazing site, arguably well ahead of its time in that it was a multi purpose building featuring a fire station (plus accommodation), ambulance station, bank and a coroners court in one large triangular site in the heart of the city. It served as a fire station until the 1970’s…
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#443 – Samsung Galaxy S7 Shoot – London Road Fire Station, Manchester – 1
Opportunities pass, they don’t pause, someone wise once told me. It was one of those passé sound bites that stuck with me and would spring to mind whenever an opportunity appeared, or more regularly when I failed to take one and regretted it after. So when out of the blue I was contacted by a…
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#425 – Library of Congress Images – the night photography of Jack Delano
I’ve featured quite a few of Jack Delano’s Library of Congress photographs on this blog over the last 18 months or so. Maybe it’s because he photographed subjects that I am interested in, but his photographs stand out for some reason. While some of the portraits of the railway workers on the Santa Fe and…
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#387 – Industry by Night
I thought I’d posted these before, but it appears not. These were taken in 2010 on a cold January evening in Redcar on Teeside. The Tata steelworks was due to shutdown within the next few weeks and it looked like the end of steelmaking in the North East was imminent. The mill was shut down…
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#363 – Library of Congress Images – Chicago Railway Workshops in Colour
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000703/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000725/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000693/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000724/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000693/PP/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992000647/PP/ In my nightschool studies of the history of photography, we…
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#266 – Farewell Hans Steeneken
A recent email brought the sad news of the passing of Dutch railway photographer Hans Steeneken. The email was from someone who has now got access to his emails, and he said that he died ‘last June 6th’, but I’ve just checked my emails and my last email from Hans was September 2011, so I presume…
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#226 – People In Railway Photography Revisited – Part 2
As I wasn’t using the optimal lens for the job, cropping played an important part of post processing., and this is where having a reasonably high megapixel count comes in handy. Now I’ve never subscribed to the theory that you should get it right in camera and never crop – it’s a laudable idea, but…
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#225 – People in Railway Photography Revisited – Part 1
Due to the usual late running on the Saturday of the East Lancs Steam Gala, the planned nightshoot was also running late, so by the time the assembled throng were let in, the engines were still being put down for the night. Never one to miss an opportunity to do something different, I hiked up the…
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#141 – East Lancashire Tornado Part 3 of 3
Another set up shot, but I’d faffed around with various compositions and shutter speeds without getting something that I was really happy with. So I left the rest of the gathered throng and went to look at the other locos, before coming back and trying again. By then everyone else was looking at Leander and the Black 5’s,…
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#140 – East Lancashire Tornado Part 2 of 3
Tornado must be one of the most written about steam locomotives in the country, and one of the best known. With it’s appearance on Top Gear and massive media coverage, it has single handedly brought steam railways into the public conscious. I was intrigued to hear a comment on the platform at Rawtenstall station from a lady,…
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#139 – East Lancashire Tornado Part 1 of 3
Last train of the day at Rawtenstall. I must have misread the timetable as I didn’t think Tornado was timetabled for this train, but I nipped over anyway to experiment with some low light shots, and was pleasantly surprised to see Tornado hauling the train in. It wasn’t as dark as I’d expected or…
Mechanical Landscapes 