The Art of Railroad Photography

One would think that as much as I like to write about, see and travel on railroads I would also be somewhat good at documenting my rail experiences by taking some nice photographs every now and then. Well, no such luck. I might not be the world’s worst photographer, but I am not that far away from it. Bokeh, aperture, focal length? All a bit mystifying to me. Not so with my friend macfilos, who lurks around with his Leica and produces some stunning photographs.

Piccadilly Tube Station, London (Photo: Macfilos)

Which brings me to a write up on today’s CNN website. It caught my eye because, you guessed it, it’s about railroad photography. A UK based father – son team has again produced some remarkable photographs of trains. Robin Coombes and his son Taliesin Coombes latest endeavor is called: “Railways at Night: From Dusk to Dawn”. It is a great collection of fascinating railroad photographs with a twist. These are not your typical, technically perfect, 3/4 shots of trains. But rather they seem moody and mysterious, maybe at times even other worldly:

All five of the above photos by Robin & Taliesin Coombes

There are a lot more interesting images on their Flickr page.

Hmmm…maybe I ought to take a course in photography.