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Read the rest of Bir-Hakeim bridge (615 words)

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Another novelty: the website is going to publish work from people that don’t necessary have a railroad related background or a railfan hobby. We really want to increase our audience to promote this branch of Photography.

Here are some details about this coming season:

• new photographers are joining the I&T Collective;
• we will post some work from people that are not involved with the Project;
• November 2010 will be the first of our special month and will try to answer to this question “is it possible to have a creative look on freight cars?”;
• there will have an increasing number of PDF publications like the magazine that is going to have a shorter form;
• and galleries will continue to show stunning pictures.

The coming season sounds exciting. We hope that you will appreciate this change and that you will find elements to enhance your vision and style.

The Members of the Images & Trains Project

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Most of the thing you can discover on the website is similar to the one that was online before the update. Updates (new posts, new sections … and more) will start in September. Also you will soon discover the 2010-2011 Season program. Here are some new functions of this updated interface:

• Pages about galleries are quite different than what it was in the past. Now, you can easily spot the last updates. This way, it allows us to do updates more often. You will just have to check the more recent picture page to know about it. Please note that if you subscribed to the Newsletter, we will tell you about the updates.
• The section about the PDF Magazine is now named Publications. This will be the place to download the magazine but also many PDF publications.
• The About section has a new Archives page that lists all the posts you can read on this website. Another page allows anyone to subscribe to the newsletter easily: you just have to type your email address and it’s done!
• The link to the forum disappears. It is now uniquely accessible to the I&T members.

A few words about the picture in the first page of the website

We chose this picture purposely. It was taken from the window of a French passenger train. It symbolizes the Images & Trains Project philosophy: to promote visions on the world of today Railroads done through Photography with some creative and even provocative approach.

Thanks for your support and your fidelity to this Project,

Renaud CHODKOWSKI
Images & Trains Project founder and webmaster

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The Images & Trains Project motto is after all, “Creative Railroad Photography”. Many people I meet wonder just what this means. Why would some pictures be better than others? Isn’t that an “over the top” vision of the I & T people’s work, when compared to other photographer’s work? What about the classic ¾ angled pose with the sun behind the photographer, (also known as wedgies)? Are they so bad? I will atempt to answer these questions within this essay. I will also give you all some clues to creating great railroad photography.

English Translation Editing : Gerry FERNS.

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Dutch langage

UTM – Uderground Train Movement is a Belgian collective that groups some talented photographers. Their work is similar to the one you can discover through this website. The langage may be an issue but Photography is an universal langage and you will easily access to the pictures.

This is a great place to get inspiration, especially if you want some ideas on the way to use wide angle lenses with creativity or to insert humanity on your images. A great website to discover!

Link to the blog homepage

The UTM members describe themselve : “Undergound Train Movement is a close group of friends who want to show their creative pictures from the railway scene, not just trains. We go undergound becose we don’t want to have name and fame, we just want to show our pictures based on the undergound scene. Its our goal to do so further in the future with a new website and our own magazine… We would like to inspire other railroad photographers and throw away all those stupid rules about how to take a picture of a train!“

NEW

The UTM now has its website. You will be able to discover galleries from the various members but also a PDF magazine.

Link to the website homepage

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Most recent pictures are first in the list. Keep checking for updates!

Last update :09.05.2010

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Most recent pictures are first in the list. Keep checking for updates!

Last update : 05.10.2010

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Animals are unpredictable. It is hard to plan any move from them. But what about trains? They are running on a track, at constant speed and they follow a schedule. Can luck have a role to play in Railroad Photography?

This subject reminds me of pictures I have already taken in which luck has already played a role. This is especially true with pictures displaying atmosphere.

Railroad Photography also means, being at the right time at the right place … with a camera! When a train arrives just we’re driving back from the supermarket, we have all said to ourselves: “Why don’t I have my camera with me today?”

So, this photo essay is about some of my lucky pictures and the stories behind them.

———-

The fist story took place in Switzerland, on the Joux Valley Railroad in June 2008. Electricity for the catenaries had been cut for maintenance. The railroad needed diesel units to haul their trains between Vallorbe and Brassus. They leased some several X2800 units from SNCF, the French State Railroad company. This was an amazing event, because X2800 units were all retired from active service in France.

One afternoon, I was railfanning on the Joux Valley with my dad. Since noon, the blue sky had been filled with big puffy clouds. Shadows were all over the valley and I asked my dad: “Do you think we will have sun?”

My dad replied: “Son, take the road on your left, I think it will be hard to get the sun.”

The road would end in the small community of Séchey. Everywhere was dark yet suddenly, the light broke through the clouds and the sound of an approaching train was filled the valley! I quickly changed my camera settings and took a picture of the units in sunlight. A few second later, the light was gone.

“Good that we didn’t stop a few meters away from here !” I said to my dad.

I took another lucky picture during that same summer. This time, the story involves trains crossing on a double track line. It is a random event and a perfect picture composition of such event is almost impossible unless…

Port-la-Nouvelle marais salants, South of France. It is 6.40 am and I am walking to Sainte Lucie Island. The Tramontane, a locally named wind, is blowing hard and I have to fight it to reach my train spotting place before the coming train arrives. I have just reached the island when I notice headlights on the horizon. I take my camera and move two feet to my left to include a nice foreground in for train picture. I pressed the shutter. The morning sun reflected off the side of an automotive freight train.

I don’t really have the time to appreciate this scene further: another train is arriving behind me on the other track. I quickly turn and put the camera back to my eye. I press the shutter once again and look at the camera screen. All is perfect: locomotives are right between the catenary poles, there are no disturbing shadows. Once again, it was a question of timing and being at the right place. Luckily there was also a 50mm lens on my camera enabled me to capture the whole scene within a single frame.

You can also be lucky when traveling. One morning in January 2010, I was sitting on a X73500 unit, a French regional train. It was filled with students going to school. The previous night had been very cold and frost covered the windows. It was slowly melting from the top. The frost was diffusing the outside light, giving a soft pink colour to the window. At Andelot station, the train stopped and the sign with the station name came to my view, at the perfect place! I took the picture. Coincidentally, this moment happened only a few days after I read the article about Lucky Pictures. If I had been seated two rows away, I wouldn’t have been able to take this shot!

When human beings are part of the subject of a picture, luck has an even bigger role to play. Once again, the photographer has to be at the right place and be ready to take advantage of the moment.

I have the perfect example for this. It is all about luck but involves the idea of the composition.

I was on the shores of Lac Léman, waiting for a train to come along. When it arrived, I worked out my composition: the train and a group of teenagers that are there taking in the sun. After pressing the shutter, I realized that some people were waving to us from the windows of the train! I missed this and that disappointed me. Anyway, this gave me inspiration for photographing the next train. I quickly changed my camera’s settings and started to pan shots of an express train. After taking those pictures, I checked them in the camera: first picture, nothing; second picture, nothing; third picture, bingo! I had captured a lady reading. For sure, I won’t take a picture like that so easily again.

In writing this essay, I realize now that many pictures include a great deal of “Luck”.

I will complete this essay with a few funny examples of luck. Like the day I met and old guy with his dog, or when a little bird came to eat on the locomotive in front of me, or when the train broke down just at the place I was taking pictures… Luckily, the list is growing month after month.

I also realize that many great pictures are not taken because of being unlucky. It may come from the wrong choice of lens or because the camera was hidden too deep in my camera bag. I could give dozens of examples like this.

In conclusion, don’t you think that the best pictures contain a large element of luck?

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Post tags: Clément Ecoffey, essai photographique, France, hasard, Images, Jura, luck, photo essay, photographie, photography, railroad, railway, SNCF, TER, Trains, X2800

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This title sounds ambitious and provocative, I admit that. The Images & Trains Project motto is after all, “New Perspectives on Railroad Photography”. Many people I meet wonder just what this means. Why would some pictures be better than others? Isn’t that an “over the top” vision of the I & T people’s work, when compared to other photographer’s work? What about the classic ¾ angled pose with the sun behind the photographer, (also known as wedgies)? Are they so bad? I will atempt to answer these questions within this essay. I will also give you all some clues to creating great railroad photography.

Light, atmosphere, aestheticism,
(The railroad photographer’s Holy Trinity)

Light, atmosphere and aestheticism: when a railroad picture has all three qualities, it is a great railroad picture! A fourth quality – chance – can make a picture both unique and amazing.

Taking a picture is having an intimate relationship with light. Some photographers even describe their work as “writing with light”. People have written books about light and I won’t start a new theory here. I will talk about light with regards to our hobby however.

Light has a strength and a color. Light’s angle changes throughout the day and light changes with latitude, the season and the location where we take pictures. Sometimes, light appears all of a sudden, from a place we never anticipated. In every case, you have to make the light one of, if not the most important subjects in your pictures.

Here is an example: Paris Gare du Nord (France). There was a short time of four or five minutes, when the sky looked simply amazing. The composition of the picture itself is not very creative. What makes the picture look so beautiful is the magenta coloured light reflecting off the bottom of the clouds. The light’s colour imparts an unusual and surreal perspective on the evening rush hour.

One element of classic railroad photography dogma is: “nice light means sunny day” and it is even better if the sun is behind the photographer! There are however, amazing lighting opportunities occurnig on cloudy or rainy days! Don’t limit yourself! Take the best picture you can using the light available at any given time. Great light permits weaker composition, you just have to concentrate on interpreting the light quality.

One should remember also that a great quality of light can come from an artificial source. The next picture shows two trains in an underground environment near Paris. There is a mix of colors: from yellow (cast by incandescent bulbs) to green (cast by fluorescent lighting). The scene looks surreal.

One point to remember when working with digital cameras, check your white balance regularly and adjust it as necessary.

To learn more about the quality of the light, I recommend reading books about landscape photography.

Pictures With Atmosphere… or how to translate the mood at the time you take the shot

Pictures conveying atmosphere have a very strong affect on us, particularly from a historical or documentary point of view. A black and white picture from the 40s, taken anywhere around the world on a station platform, touches everybody. In this case, atmosphere is conveyed by details such as people’s clothing and look, rolling stock, advertising, etc.

But a rising winter sun on a quiet mountain, or a morning fog on an empty platform also convey strong atmospheres. The atmosphere of a picture picture creates a relationship between the photographer and the viewer. There is a kind of intimacy between the two people at that moment. And the stronger the feeling the photographer conveys, the stronger it will be for the reader.

Here is an example. We visited Persan-Beaumont station on a foggy morning, a town located in the Northern suburbs of Paris. The subject is kind of commonplace, a night shot, a small station. It’s not even a documentary picture as we can not really see any details of the moving train. But there is an atmosphere, A deep fog, some ghostly commuters, blue screens contrasting with the global orange colour. No doubt, that morning was cold, just like I was when I took the picture.

But be careful when you take pictures like these, the camera has no feelings and sometimes the result of your work will be a bit disappointing. Our brains transform our realities depending upon our our pre-conceived notions of reality.

Aestheticism is the most concrete notion of the photographer’s Trinity. For me, this means having a great selection of pictures while knowing a minimum of photographic skills.

Quality is better than quantity in this case. You have to make a selection of the most powerful pictures you want to show. You should use a critical eye on your own work. Forums are a good example of how people flood their messages with tons of medium quality pictures. This is a shortcoming of the digital era. The result is simply that the global quality goes down.

To take aesthetic pictures, you only have to know a minimum of photographic rules. Practicing the rule of thirds, basics of composition and elements of design will quickly improve the visual quality of your pictures and you don’t need a degree in photography to do that! There are dozens of books that explain these principles.
Aestheticism is that artistic flair and good taste that creates a debate. Many people link it to elitism. I will talk about that at the end of this text.

A Personal Vision And Approach

With regards to photography, we all have our own definition of reality. Some people think the picture has to be “as seen” at the moment the photographer took the picture. People having that philosophy will perform a minimum of post-processing work; no framing, no color change, etc. Some other people and I am one of them, take more liberties with their pictures and have a more artistic (and sometimes philosophical) approach. This is acheivable at the moment you take the picture, (with help of wide angle lenses or filters, or by finding an unusual composition, or by the creative use of the light), or by performing a post-processing transformation of the picture.

This approach may not really be welcomed by some railfan photographers. They may think that pictures only have a documentary role; for historical purposes, or for modeling purposes. For those purposes, details and colour authenticity are essential. A typical example of this is the North American roster picture. I have a deep respect for this vision of the Railroad world. It is part of our history that builds up in our memories. But if your photography is limited only to creating documentary works, you miss out on applying the personal touch to your work.

My first example of a personal approach: Black and White photography.

The picture above shows an endless grain train, somewhere in Idaho, in the U.S.A. There is a strong contrast coming from the back-lit scene. The mist draws silhouettes in the background. The long string of hoppers make a nice pattern, rich textures. This scene was perfect for black and white processing. Many photographers in the digital age, think that black and white is simply a trick to transform a bad picture (because of the poor lighting or weather), to a “corrected” picture. That’s completely untrue! Digital photography gives us the freedom to use the black and white medium purposefully. Doing so shows the strength of a strong personal approach. Removing the colours can reveal what hides behind. Black and white can be a very interesting and rewarding medium. I will write further articles about black and white photography in the future.

Another approach one can take is what I call “Environmental Railroad Photography”. This is similar to landscape photography and as such, railroad photographers often take pictures of both. When you photograph in this manner, you have to know the location extremely well. Environmental railroad photography forces you to walk away from the tracks and look all around you, in order to let the environment become part of you. To familiarise yourself with pictures taken in this style, I invite you to discover Clément Ecoffey, Mashima Mitsuhide, Feunteun & Sabiron or Dale Sanders’ works. Maybe you will try a similar approach.

I have written here about two personal approaches that move away from the more usual documentary photography. There are plenty of other creative approaches to this as well. You could try HDR work, Human or Night Photography for example. The point being that a personal approach can distinguish railroad photography from the norm, making it different and greater by the fact that it has something special to say. When this happens, the photogropher’s personality becomes part of the picture.

In Conclusion

Searching for the perfect light, the right atmosphere, possessing some basic technical skills and having your own approach are the secrets to great railroad photography. Remember, the goal is not to be the best photographer ever, or to be part of an elite group. You must be yourself and show your vision on the magic in the world of railways by using your sensitivity. That is very far away from elitism!

Vision, style and approach are all words taken from the photographer’s general vocabulary. This article hopefully explains that, the core goal of the Images & Trains Project is not to simply display more pictures of trains. But rather, the project’s images share the photographers personal vision through a railway related “Photographic Art Form”.
So use an objective eye towards your own work and ask yourself about your own vision. Be humble, curious and look at other photographers’ work. Then you too will take great railroad photographs.

I invite you to share your railroad art through the Images & Trains project.

English Translation Editing : Gerry FERNS.

[Download a PDF version of this text]4.40 MO – 9 pages – High quality pictures

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