Tag Archives: #England

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Spa Valley Railway—Tunbridge Wells West

Our friend Hassard Stacpoole met us in London and escorted Kris and I for the day on a tour of the Spa Valley Railway.

This charming preserved railway operates a short branch on the old Southern Railway network that connects Tunbridge Wells West with Eridge.

We took a Southeastern Trains electric multiple unit from Charing Cross to the Network Rail station at Tunbridge Wells, then walked for about 15 minutes to Tunbridge Wells West, where the Spa Valley has a small station, gift shop and locomotive shed (shop). Several fine looking locomotives were being maintained at the shed.

Although it was overcast, the cool weather made for some effluent displays of steam locomotive exhaust. The operational steam locomotive du jour was a handsome BR standard 2 type 2-6-0.

I made this selection of photo at Tunbridge Wells West using my Nikon Z7-II (with 70-200mm lens). I was just getting warmed up! We bought day passes and went for a spin to Eridge.

More Spa Valley posts to follow!

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Announcements, photography, Rail transit marathon, Tips and Technique

Great Western Railway—views from the train.

I made these photos of the English country-side with my Nikon Z7-II from the window of our train on the way to and from Oxford.

In post processing, I adjusted the camera’s NEF RAW files to help compensate for the effects of the tinted window glass.

Generally, I got my best results when I kept the camera lens pressed against the window with the aperture wide open (f4.0) and the shutter speed set very high. In some situations, where I angled the camera to better capture the scene, I caught some reflections from the lights inside the train.

Didcot Parkway.

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Square view of the Balcombe Viaduct

This ancient viaduct spans the Ouse Valley in Sussex, England.

I photographed the bridge for a book project on my visit there in June 2001.

This evening view was exposed with a Rolleiflex Model T, loaded with Kodak Tri-X—film that I later processed using a customize mix of Ilfotec HC liquid developer.

This high constrast developer yielded a very tight grain structure with excellent shadow detail, but tended to leave the sky a bit too dense. This flaw was easily corrected with Lightroom, where sky mask feature made for a clean fix.

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Leeds at Dusk August 10 2014

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Working with my then-new Lumix LX7, I exposed this photograph of the Leeds (UK) Railway station from an adjacent hotel.

I was on a non-linear trip that brought me from Dublin to Manchester to Leeds, back to Manchester then to Charleroi, and Brussels, Belgium, and back to Dublin.

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