Welcome and to the first topic.....

Welcome to my new blog, let’s hope it makes for an interesting read!

I am going to start with choosing a style of Railway Photography to talk around… The landscape!

So how does one define a landscape railway photograph?  Of course everyone will have their own variation of a definition, but I am going to try to try to define the style clearly from my own thinking.  However when we say “style” one can often guess the photographer’s name because of consistent features to their landscape images often unique to them.

A landscape image without a train or railway is so often out of town and can include the human element or any other activity associated with the countryside; therefore why not a railway too?  But it does not have to be out of town, a pictorial urban scene can often too be classified as a landscape image too.

The railway landscape should firstly include substantially more of the landscape itself with the train and track bed proportionally less.

If photographing steam often the train can be very distant and still work as a railway landscape because of the steam/smoke.  But there will be a point when the train becomes too insignificant, especially for non colourful units.

A railway landscape does not have to be just a ¾ view that has more than the train, but can be so much more.  For a good result just follow normal photographic rules for composition and you should achieve a good result.