This one photograph…
I’ve mentioned the library as a childhood source of railway knowledge previously and its source of information and inspiration through printed page and ‘colour albums’…
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| The BRCW Class 26s will always be synonymous with Scotland, having been employed across the region for more than 30 years since they arrived en masse in 1959. No. 26027 heads south along the shores of Loch Caron with a four-coach service from Kyle of Lochalsh in June 1979. Photo: John Cooper-Smith (British Rail - The Blue and Grey Years, Rail Express bookazine). |
It cannot be just me that stumbles upon a photograph, usually in print and thinks “wow”. It stops you in your tracks, gets under your skin. You could gaze at it happily for hours, not just the subject or even the landscape but it’s colours, it’s composition, it’s feeling. I recently happened upon this photograph in a Rail Express bookazine and froze, the same photograph had transfixed me as a child and I have tried, in vein to recall on several occasions the book to which it lived so I could enjoy it again as an adult. I’d never been to Scotland yet this one singular photo made me want to, in fact it was probably the underlying reason I drove to Kyle of Lochalsh as a teenager.
This one photograph.
Is it the colours of the loch, the composition of the train, the short branchline formation… or more, the colours of the distant mountains, the greens the blues, the close up gnarly tree and the distant hillside, the mirror flat loch and the gentle ripples of a light breeze. It is all just wonderful, a moment captured that I could live in forever.
Sometimes these photographs drive us to create a layout or visit a real location. Sometimes they’re just wonderful images. What images have stopped you in your tracks? What is it about them that you find so arresting? Have you had the same experience as me? I’d love to hear your stories.
Until next time, more soon…
It is an interesting question. There was a picture in my ancient childhood dog-chewed, as opposed to dog-eared, copy of "The world's Railways and How They Work" of the Kalka Shimla. That inspired my visit there many years later. I think the book I borrowed most frequenty from the library was a photo album of the Lynton & Barnstaple.
ReplyDeleteBut most of all it was probably the photos in my father's old guidebooks from the early days of the preserved TR and FR
What was it about these photographs in particular James?
DeleteI think there were two or three things. That sense of a time that seems to be gone for ever, helped almost by how poor the photos were, which was part of the atmosphere. I remember being so dreadfully dissapointed when I first actually visited the FR. It was too clinical for me. Finally I think there is something, even when I was a child, about a scene appearing modelable. That is probably linked to composisition. I think there is a very close match between photography and modeling. Indeed Flemish Quay, if I ever finish it, is really a stage for photos.
DeleteThat resonates with me James - thanks for sharing - and indeed, I hope the journey with Flemish Quay results in a composition you're pleased with and evokes the feelings you describe. I certainly agree, for me there is a strong connection between prototype photography and modelling - especially photography of models. Perhaps that's a ribbon of thought I'd not considered previously.
DeleteI've had a bit of a think about what's grabbed me in photos I've seen since returning to the hobby and what I liked when leafing through dad's books as a kid, and I think it's the drama created by a sense of movement. Take this for instance: https://www.shorpy.com/node/17436
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of cool industrial stuff going on there, but what really does it for me is that bow wave coming off the tug Andy (and judging by the Shorpy title I'm not the only one). Similarly, I love these very atmospheric pictures of the Night Ferry but that one of the train about to enter Shakespeare Cliff Tunnel is the winner to me http://www.eastbank.org.uk/ferry.htm
I didn't really get trains books out of the library- it couldn't compete with dad's collection- but one book that sent me off on a completely unrelated subject was Spacecraft in Fact and Fiction, and I very vividly recall first seeing the Chris Foss and Frank Paul covers, which were full of speed and colour. From Dad's (still growing) pile I remember spending hours pouring over the old partwork History of Railways, and I don't so much remember specific images as the sense of action from all the blurred photos of Setebellos and 86s on the WCML.
A bit of incongruity helps as well; I picked up the old picture book Trains of Thought a while back, and my favourite photo is of a Western hauling a short freight just after a rain shower and the old 10ft wheelbase vans that make up the train are so out of keeping with the sense of speed from the rest of the composition.
Tim
Thanks Tim, the shot of the industrial scene with boats, bridges and small switcher is certainly a real punch of composition, hustle and bustle. I can see the pull in this image, but less so the second choice? That said, the Western with a short train is exactly the sort of image I'm talking about - I'd love for you to be able to share that with us, alas I suspect, just one for the memories (like my own 'mind blank' on the book I originally saw this image in!)
DeleteTim, Lifting bridge, railway, river, boat, industrial buildings...it is my Flemish Quay micro! As for the Night Ferry photo, I think I get it. It is the sort of photo that was in many of my railways books as a child, where trains were usually in the context of some major civil engineering triumph like a bridge. It helps that the loco is a class I loved.
DeleteUnfortunately I can only share the Western image by taking a photo of the page with my phone, which won't do it any kind of justice. But the book it is from is Trains of Thought by the Phoenix Railway Photographic Circle, and apparently it turns up on eBay enough to get some Google hits, like this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/392284270835
DeleteI've no idea how well known the Phoenix Railway Photographic Circle is, but apparently it's still going (https://www.phoenix-rpc.co.uk/), and although the website is a bit clunky, you can see a lot of their work on their flicker page: https://www.flickr.com/groups/phoenixrailwayphotographiccircle/
Tim
If I had to pick out "just one photo" it would probably be a view by Ben Ashworth of a Pannier Tank and a short goods train passing over the road and canal bridges at Talybont-on-Usk in the early 1960s. I first saw it in P.B. Whitehouse's Branch Line Album but it's also been published elsewhere. Rail, canal, road, pub, all sounds idyllic but it looks to have been a rainy
ReplyDelete...day so the black and white photo is grainy and the scene is far from chocolate boxy! Somehow it just moves me in a way no other photo has, quite...
Delete(Sorry for the split reply, managed to hit the publish button accidentally)
I shall see if I can find a copy Simon. What is it about the photograph do you think? are there others? Do you find you're drawn to the same sorts of things - perhaps not the content or prototype, but the setting? the country? the time of year?
DeleteHi James
ReplyDeleteReally interesting blog on photos and it got me thinking that, yes, there were photos that got me into modelling North American logging based shortlines. Back in the late 1970’s I was getting frustrated trying to build a British industrial model railway. Just after our son’s birth I went to Rio Tinto’s offices to do some research on their railway in Spain. On the way back and on a whim I went into Victor’s on the Pentonville Road. Then “the” place for US modelling. I brought a few items as it seemed I could build a US layout for him. One of the books was “Railroads in the Woods” in hardback. The photos in that opened my eyes to a whole new world of industrial railways and I quickly started down the slippery road to modelling obsession.
Two photos from that ( and I have sent you a scan ) really inspired me. The first was of a 2-8-2 switching the log dump at White River Lumber. The loco (lokey) was bigger than any industrial loco in the UK and the caboose and log cars unlike anything I had seen. Also the mill, company housing and the scenery just cried out to be modelled. I have spent many hours looking at this and similar White River photos since then and it still strikes a chord. Having said the 2-8-2 seemed large another photo which got to me was of Long Bell’s malley 2-6-6-2 #1000 heading over a trestle bridge with two moving cars and a log train. This was really outside of my understanding of what a industrial railway was I could almost feel the vibration and hearing the noise just looking at the photo.
When I went the states first in 1989 I had hoped to see White River but it like Long Bell had closed, but I did get to sit on the old Lon Bell grade as I watched a Weyerhaeuser train head over the Cowlitz River bridge
Best regards
Alan