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…
Category: Low Light Photography
#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…
#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…
#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…
#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…
#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…
#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…
#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,…
#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,…
#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 