More than just Railways
This year’s Spring Steam Gala was held over the weekend of 27th to the 30th April. If you wanted to put a theme or title to the gala it would have to be “Black Engines” because nearly every loco was in BR black livery.
Continue reading “West Somerset Railway Spring Steam Gala 2017”
Ask the “ordinary man in the street” (whoever he might be) to name a famous steam locomotive and the answer is almost certainly going to be Flying Scotsman. Between the 13th & 19th of April 2017 the loco visited the Bluebell Railway where, on Easter Saturday I had the opportunity to enjoy a ride behind her and was also able to take some photographs her at Sheffield Park, Horsted Keynes and East Grinstead.
At the current terminus of the Kent and East Sussex Railway is the town of Bodiam. This small town has an impressive castle, built in 1385 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a former knight of Edward III, with the permission of Richard II. The castle has no keep and all the rooms and chambers are built around the outer defensive wall. This was characteristic of castle architecture in the 14th century.
The ruins of Nunney castle can be found, obviously enough, in the town of Nunney in Somerset. The castle was built in 1373 by Sir John de la Mere who had fought in France during the Hundred Years War, he returned to England with a large amount of money and applied to King Edward III for permission to build the castle.
Brean Down is a headland between Burnham on sea and Weston super mare the earliest evidence for settlement in the area goes back to the Bronze Age and at the far end of it are the remains of a fort that was built in the 1860s as part of the coastal defences.
We live in a world of colour so it’s only natural that when we take photographs we do so in colour, but for many years black & white was the only type of film available but black & white photographs still have a place.
Do away with colour and it concentrates the attention on the subject and can produce a much more dramatic and powerful picture.
For about half of my working life Battersea Power Station dominated the view of the skyline from my office window, for around 14 of those years the power station was operational and smoke could always be seen billowing up from one or more of its chimneys.
Way back in 2009 while driving across the Somerset levels I saw something through the trees that I didn’t expect to see, a group of thatched roundhouses, this I thought required investigation.
I sometimes wonder if we railway photographers take ourselves and our hobby a bit too seriously. We go to great lengths to pick just the right location and just the right angle, we worry if the sun is in just the wrong place Continue reading “You can’t be serious!”
One of the things about digital photographs is that it is very easy to edit them, that lamppost growing out of someone’s head is no longer a problem, nor is that disembodied arm at the edge of the picture. Photoshop, or one of its brothers, is your friend!