On our January 2007 Austrian epic, photographer Denis McCabe and I drove a hired car up a hill at Penk in the Alps to score this view of a massive arched bridge on the Tauern Pass.
Traffic over the route is light compared with either the Brenner or Semmering alpine routes. Yet, we caught several trains in a relatively short span of time.
Here, an ÖBB Siemens Taurus electric leads an Intercity passenger bound for Villach in southern Austria.
The scale of the bridge seems out of proportion with the railway; its like an O-scale structure carrying an N-scale train.
In mid January 2007, I was visiting Austria with photographer Denis McCabe.
On one cool sunny evening, we had set up at Brixlegg, where ÖBB crosses the River Inn. The view west presented the shadowy wall of an Alpine ridge, accentuated by patches of snow.
As the final golden solar rays of this January day graced the rails, I made a series of Fujichrome slides of an ÖBB Bombardier-built Talent railcar on its eastward journey across the Inn.
I’d borrowed a Canon EF75-300mm lens from Denis, and used this with my Canon EOS-3 camera.
The other night, I scanned some of these slides using a Nikon LS-5000 scanner.
Canon EOS-3 loaded with Fujichrome Velvia100, fitted with EF75-300mm zoom.
Fifteen years ago, I was on a ten-day clockwise exploration of central Europe with photographers Denis McCabe and Tim Doherty.
Fresh snow and bright sun at Semmering, Austria made for ideal photographic conditions.
We arrived in Austria the previous evening and we poised for a day of photography on ÖBB’s famous Semmering Pass, which is one of the oldest mountain railways in the world.
This view looking down on Semmering station made it look like a model railway. Check out all the switches!
Working with my Canon EOS 3, I exposed these photos on Fujichrome. I scanned the original slides last night using a Nikon LS5000 slide scanner. I made minor adjustments in Lightroom to my TIF scans then scaled the files using Lightroom for presentation here.
Among my slides from 8 September 2008, was this image of freights at Wien Huttelsdorf, Austria.
In the afternoon, I aimed my Canon EOS3 loaded with Fujichrome Provia 100F toward an ÖBB Siemens-built Taurus electric as it hummed its acceleration song while leading a freight out of a siding and out on to the main.
In the foreground is a ‘slip-switch’ or ‘puzzle-switch’, an arrangement of rails that allows maximum route flexibility between converging routes.
For 15 years this slide sat unlabled in the dark. Working from my notes taken during my September 2008 trip, I was able to accurately label these photographs.
On the evening of 8 September 2008, I was on a whirlwind tour of Hapsburg cities with fellow photographer Denis McCabe.
Working with a Canon EOS-3 loaded with Provia 100F, I made this low-angle photo of a Ring tram paused at the Rathausplatz-Burgtheater stop.
At the time, I carried a compact mini Gitzo tripod that was well suited to this type of urban photography.
I like the contrast of the opulent Hapsburg architecture with the drain-grate in the foreground.
Fujichrome Provia 100F was an ideal choice for this type of night photography because the film incorporates filtration layers designed to minimize the color spikes caused by various types of artificial light.
On this day ten years ago (January 11, 2012), I spent an afternoon with my Irish friends Stephen Hirsch and Denis McCabe around Werfen, Austria, photographing the ÖBB in action .
I made this selection of photos with my Canon EOS-7D—a camera that I still own, and still occasionally use.
I love the Canon color palatte, and this really shows in these digital photos in the snowy landscape along the river Salzach.
In January 2012, I was visiting Graz, Austria with Stephen Hirsch and Denis McCabe.
I made this photo of trams meeting on a pedestrianized street in the ciry center using my Canon EOS 7D.
Below are two versions of the same image.
Camera jpg
The top image is the in-camera JPG, scaled for internet.
The bottom is my interpretation of the camera RAW file with adjustments to exposure, contrast, color temperature and color saturation implemented with Adobe Lightroom to improve the scene.
This represents another experimental series of scans with my V600 and recently downloaded Epson Scan 2 (6.4.99.0) software.
I’d purchased my Epsom V600 about 2011 to replace an earlier Epson V500 scanner that had suffered a failure. Until recently I was using the original Epson software to drive the V600. The other night I decided to upgrade the software and install it on a more modern & much faster Apple MacBook Pro.
Although Epson’s Scan 2 software appears to have been on the market for a while, I’d just discovered it the other day. More to the point, I’ve found that it vastly improved my scans. This scanner-driver software combination offers greater clarity, exceptional sharpness, and runs faster and more consistently which allows the same scanner to perform noticeably better than with the earlier Epson driver.
I’d exposed this medium-formet Kodak Tri-X 400 ISO black & white film using my Rollei Model T, while exploring Austria’s Semmering Pass with photographer Denis McCabe in August 2003. On a warm afternoon we waited out a thundershower at the station shelter in Breitenstein.
I’d processed the film after my return to Dublin using Ilfotec HC liquid developer which offered broad tonal range and very fine grain.
I had a full day in Salzburg at the tail end of a week-long winter exploration of Austria and Bavaria.
Standing on the banks of the nearly frozen Salzach, I made this view of a DB (German Railways) Regional Express set running empty from the Salzburg Hbf.
Although the sky was clear above, an inversion layer had trapped pollution near the ground giving the light a brown tint.
Salzburg is near the border with Germany and German and Austrian services overlap in this area.
35mm Fujichrome slide scanned using a Nikon Super Coolscan5000 with VueScan software.
