Looking Back a Hundred Years

Here is an interesting scene—a British railway platform, c. 1920s, as recreated in meticulous detail in the National Railway Museum, York. Here one steps back a century—no digital screens, no neon lights, nothing post-dating the era of steam and newspapers. This is the world of P G Wodehouse and Agatha Christie, when movies were silent and radio a novelty. This is the genius of the museum scenario, a kind of immersion in which you can look into another time. The light levels in the museum are quite soft, so I was holding the camera against a vertical surface for stability, and did quite well—the light gathering ability of the old technology was only a fraction of today’s point-and-shoot ability. Supporting the camera during long exposures became second nature. I took this shot on my UK trip of November, 2011, the last time I visited the NRW, and it certainly appeals to my fascination with vanish point symmetry. Minor adjustments to contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Fun with Reflections

You can get up to all sorts of tricks with reflections, but sometimes you find the reflection is the whole image. This is a 1926 steam locomotive, preserved in the National Railway Museum, York., UK., which I photographed on my visit in late 2011, and the lighting conditions in the sheds were tricky—soft enough to make blur a constant hazard with the light gathering ability of the cameras of the day. (Now, no problem, they handle low light like magic, but then? It took ingenuity.) The engines on display are polished to the nines, and the interplay of artificial light and gleaming surfaces did all the work in this image. It’s not even enhanced, in any way! Just metal, paint, a lot of hard work with polishing tools, and the interplay of light, creating a machine-as-art situation. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

"Black 5"

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

"Black 5" is a very famous locomotive: it used to draw Queen Victoria's train over a hundred years ago. It is preserved in immaculate condition at the National Railway Museum, York, UK, and makes for a very difficult photographic challenge. First it is a highly reflective black object, second it's stored in a museum whose internal lighting is a mix of full-frequency and fluourescent types, thirdly the object is too big to paint with flash, and lastly, the light level is even softer than at the RAF Museum at Hendon. It's dark in there, and upping the virtual speed may not have made all that much difference, going by more recent experiences with concert shoots. I held the camera steady any way I could and just kept shooting, sure something usable would be among the blur. This image was gamma-corrected to bring up mid-tones, then contrast and colour balanced to restore overall integrity, and sharpened for clarity. November, 2006. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Sleeping Dinosaurs

Click image to view at 800 pixels wide

Steam locomotives are wonderful things -- visually fascinating and loaded with history, machines that characterised past ages and which are preserved in museums as the ghosts of those times. This is an engine undergoing service at Britain's National Railway Museum in York, in November, 2006. The biggest rail museum in the world, it is located on part of the oldest passenger rail network: George Stepheneson's Rocket ran those lines in 1825.! This is a simple frame up but, as with the Hendon aviation museum, the lighting in these enormous buildings was perpetually in the cracks between just enough and never enough for a virtual 200ASA. I was concerned about digital grain and wanted crystal clear shots, so didn't go up to 400, and as a consequence I was permanently fighting motion blur in these places. This shot is a supported one which beat the problem. Mild enhancement: sharpen, contrast and colour. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.