I’d never been to Peak Rail in Derbyshire before, partly because it’s a pain in the arse to get to from central Lancashire. However, I’d read that they’d got an event on, so I braved the windy A-roads and headed south. The line is pretty flat and short (4 miles), and with a stop half…
Category: Railway Photography
#87 – National Coal Mining Museum
Worked quite hard to get this, the sun was quite high in the sky and at an inconvenient angle, which also resulted in the sky becoming burnt out. I used a 24mm lens to get what I could in of the diesel loco, as well as the colliery headstock, not easy as it’s quite a…
#81 – White Balance Nightmare!!
I’d only had the camera a few weeks when I took this, so I suppose that’s my excuse for not fathoming out how to take a manual white balance for this scene. In actual fact, i struggle the whole night with the sodium vapour lighting, but for the most part I was able to correct it in…
#79 – Vale Mills Re-Visit
I’d nothing to do, so I decided to head back over to the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway to check out some possible locations. After a brisk walk around Keighley, I headed back up to Oakworth to check out Vale Mills. This time I put on a 24mm prime to give a wider field of…
#77 – Haworth Landscape
First shot of the day from my visit to the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway was from a road bridge that overlooks the sheds at Haworth. Although the railway have an excellent viewing area that overlooks the sheds, I tried here first and was rewarded with a view along the rainy valley (it was absolutely throwing…
#76 – Vale Mills, Oakworth
War Department 2-8-0 storms out of Oakworth Station on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. I’d spotted this location when I was on the train earlier and drove down for a closer look. When I got there, I had a walk round to see if I could include the mill and the railway in the shot,…
#75 – rare station photo
I’ve said in the past that I never take pictures in stations. So here’s one I took at the weekend! As I’m not a ‘rivet counter’ I don’t get much satisfaction out of taking photos of stationary trains in stations. But as the train was delayed, I thought I’d see if I could make an…
#68 – light and location (part 1)
For me, location is hugely important in railway photography. Once a good location has been found, it is well worth re-visiting, especially at different times of the day and different times of the year. These are taken at Townsendfold on the East Lancs Railway. This first one was taken in 2007 at the winter steam gala,…
#67 – Colour? Or black and white?
I took this late on a February afternoon, with the sun low in the sky on the other side of the bridge. Clouds kept partially obscuring it, but I kept getting some terrific light on the railway arches, but no train! It finally arrived (on time), and I got this image. I must admit that…
#65 – over-reliance on technology?
Stabilised lenses (VR in the case of the Nikon system that I use) are a fantastic innovation that has allowed me to take photos in circumstances that would be impossible with a normal lenses. However, I learnt an important (but cringingly obvious) lesson the other night – by and large, they work best when the…
Mechanical Landscapes 