Category: Railway Photography
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#98 – Horwich Loco Works
Horwich Loco Works is somewhere I’ve been meaning to look at for some time, but never got round to it. For years I’ve looked at it’s huge long brick Erecting Shop as I pass it on the M61, and last went in the early 90’s when the site was used for car boot sales on…
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#97 – The Y
Unfortunately there wasn’t much happening at Loughborough station but a visit to the sheds and a mooch around the bookshop killed an hour. In the distance here is a demonstration freight train, but it’s maybe too far way to see here. Still, I like all the period features in the scene.
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#96 – Explosives!
Unlike proper heritage lines, Snibston didn’t appear to have a demonstration freight train running, at least not a steam hauled one (although there was a charter on the Friday, but I only found that out afterwards). That was a shame as they’d brought a steam train in especially from the Chasewater railway and it ended…
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#95 – Cobbles and Steam
The area around Keighley station seems pretty much as it was 50 years ago, all cobbled streets, ginnels and old stone mills. I wanted to make a feature of this landscape so I had a scout around the area on foot, which is often the best way as you see things you wouldn’t if you…
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#93 – Book Review – Hans Steeneken’s ‘All Trains To Stop’
An enjoyable trip to Peak Rail in Derbyshire didn’t produce any great photos, but a visit to their 2nd hand book wagon did yield a couple of 50 pence gems. First up was ‘Steam’ by Ian Krause, whose work I’d seen in the classic Ian Allan ‘Steam Portfolio’. It’s mainly steam in action, and some…
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#92 – Peak Rail 2
Nikon D700, Nikkor 28-70, 1/100 @ F18, ISO 400 Another one from Peak Rail. 8624 waits at Rowsley South to be turned on the new turntable. I wanted to inclde different elements of the railway in the scene, as most photos taken from platforms are, frankly, boring record shots. So I waited for the driver…
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#91 – Peak Rail 1
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…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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…
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#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,…
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#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…
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#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,…
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#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…
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#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…
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#64 – Guesswork / bulb mode
Sometimes, you run out of pre-set exposure times on your camera and you have to resort to the ‘guess’ mode, AKA Bulb. This particular scene was tricky as the big floodlight in the background kept being turned on and off, which made exposure a pain. After several tests, I ended up thinking f*ck it, counted to…
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#62 – Details
Who said railway photography has to have the train as the main, or only, compositional element? OK, so unless you are a railway enthusiast you may not recognise these lamps as being used on steam engines, but as part of a larger set of images, it adds a different perspective to it. As I often…
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#60 – it doesn’t always go according to plan… (part 2)
Following on from my post the other week, I attempted to photograph the Cotton Mills Express again. Right, I thought, I’ll watch it locally, then head out to somewhere more photogenic. So I saw it a couple of miles away from my house (which was further than it got last time – it failed at…
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#57 – sunset
I always moan at how in the UK we don’t get those lovely skies we see in those fabulous photos of steam in China. This is as good as we get in Preston. I wanted to capture the young lady at work on the engine, perhaps need a bit of dodging to bring her out…
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#56 – adding a bit of atmosphere 3
More steam trains! If on the off chance you read this blog regularly, you’ll have noticed a few recent posts of steam train pictures. I love steam trains, and have done for years, although I kind of drift in and out of photographing them. I enjoy the challenge of trying to make something creative and…
Mechanical Landscapes 