Friday, 21 September 2018, I knew that Irish Rail 071 would be working the up IWT Liner. This bright orange locomotive would allow me to make a dramatic photo in a situation where a grey or silver locomotive wouldn’t be as effective.
Selecting my vantage point from the Old Cabra Road in Dublin, I faced an unusually contrasty situation. Dramatic fluffly clouds were racing across the sky, rapidly alternating between bright backlit sun and a relatively dark scene with a distant bright sky.
To make the most of this, I used my Lumix LX7 to make a couple of test photos. Then opted to under expose my final photo by about 1/3 of stop. This would allow me to retain a bit of detail in the sky, which I could then adjust in post processing.
The final photos required several steps of adjustment to the RAW file.
1) I applied a digital graduated neutral density filter to bring in the sky highlights
2) I warmed up the overall colour temperature to counter act the prevalent blue light as result of the heavy shadows.
3) Contrast was softened.
4) Shadows lightened
5) A radial filter was applied to the front of the engine to lighten it slightly.
6) I increased the overall colour saturation slightly to counter the effects of dull lighting in the cutting.
