Five Crazy Railway Photography Ideas You Won't Believe Actually Work

It's like having a magic wand. Guaranteeing a sunny shot even when it's cloudy...

...And would you like some sunshine in that picture? Details in the body text, further down the post.

The images in this post may look deceptively normal. But their creation path was anything but. Whether the surprise was in how they were taken, or what happened after they were taken, these images are proof that railway photography is not always quite as simple as pointing an SLR at a train and hitting the shutter release.

In the rundown you'll find impromptu optical jiggery-pokery, Stonehenge-era detective work, some extremely un-digital restoration, and an almost godlike plan to change the course of the weather! So let's not delay any further. It's time to ascend into the unseen world of unconventional rail photographers' tactics...

The Digital Camera's Entry Into Railway Photography

"The game-changing new releases came from a variety of brands, but they all had one of two main capture systems: a Sony 3.34 megapixel ICX252AK chip, or a Fujifilm Super CCD."

Let the tournament commence... In the late 1990s, poor quality digital cameras were competing against sensationally colourful slide film such as this, the landscaper's old favourite - Fujichrome Velvia 50. The digicam had the mother of all battles on its hands...

As a digital imager since the 1990s, and one of the first contributors to fully illustrate a UK railway magazine article with digital photo files, I can vividly remember how roundly the digital format was dismissed in its early days. Back at a time when the vast majority of railway photos were submitted for nationwide publication by post, on original colour transparency media, I set about persuading a magazine editor to accept a full set of digital files in accompaniment to an article I'd written. To say the least, it was not an easy task.