When in Rome on this day in 2017 (April 5th), I photographed a Leonardo Express airport train gliding through the platforms at Trastervere station.
I was traveling light on this expoloratory trip to Italy and only carrying my Nikon F3 film camera and Lumix LX7 compact digital camera.
I returned six months later with my Fuji XT1 among other equipment. At the time I was researching and photographing for my book: Brian Solomon’s Railway Guide to Europe.
A couple of weeks ago I made these views of some colorful Trenitalia trains at Roma Termini.
Bright Mediterranean light is pleasant to work with. In this situation I’ve taken the classic approach with the sun over my left shoulder. It was nice to have some interesting, yet static subjects to work with.
I made several digital views with my Lumix LX7, but also exposed some 35mm color slides on Fujichrome Provia.
Lumix LX7 photograph.
Lumix LX7 photograph.
These are the digital images. We’ll need to wait to see how the slides turned out.
Rome’s largest station is a vast stub end terminal aptly named ‘Roma Termini’. In addition to nearly 30 platforms, this features a huge shopping mall that is integrated with the terminal facilities.
Rome’s metro lines cross here and there’s a surface tram terminus on the west side of the station.
in late September 2017, I exposed all but one of these photos using my Lumix LX7.
My aim was to capture the bustle and atmosphere of this enormous transport node. At peak times 30 trains an hour depart the station.
Roma Termini is one of more than a dozen major railway stations featured in my upcoming book on European Railway travel.
One hour’s worth of arrivals and departures.
Close up of an FS electric exposed with my FujiFilm XT1.
It was a bright morning last week when I exposed this view of a Trenitalia double-deck suburban train approaching its station stop at Rome Trastevere en route to Roma Termini (Rome’s main station).
I worked with my FujiFilm XT1 with 90mm f2.0 lens for this photo.
Exposed using a FujiFilm XT1 fitted with a Fujinon f2.0 90mm lens.
Regular readers may have noticed that I’ve been making regular use of this camera/lens combination.
I have four lens for my FujiFilm XT1; 12/27/90mm fixed focal length (prime) lenses, plus an 18-135mm zoom lens. Lately the 27 and 90mm primes have been the most useful.
Why not use the zoom lens more? Here’s three reasons:
1) The 18-135mm zoom not as fast as the primes. My 90mm f2 is 2.5/3 stops faster that the 18-135mm.
2) The 18-135mm zoom isn’t as sharp.
3) I find that the discipline of working with a fixed focal length lenses lends to stronger images. This is an abstract notion, but often seems to be true.
Over the years I’ve gone back and forth between a preference for zooms over primes. It’s the toss up of convenience over image quality. There’s no one ‘right’ solution. But when I look back at my images that I prize the most, many of them have been exposed using prime glass.
In April, I used my Lumix LX7 to expose this view of modern Italian passenger trains, including the Italo (at right)—a privately operated high-speed train—at Firenze S. M. Novella [Florence main station.]
Filtered noon-time light made for a painterly-like setting.
An FS (Italian State Railway) articulated electric locomotive leads a northward freight at Framura on Italy’s Mediterranean coast.
Using my Lumix LX7, I made this photo in the minutes before sunset in early April 2017. To make the most of the camera’s RAW file, I adjusted contrast and exposure in post processing using Lightroom and outputted this as a JPG sized for internet presentation.
Framura, Italy.
Tracking the Light is posting automatically while Brian is traveling.
It was a bright April 2017 morning when I arrived at Genova Piazza Principe. The station is scenically situated in an open area between two tunnels.
The challenge of making visually impressive photos of Italian railways lies in finding ways to handle the infrastructure effectively.
Italian Railways are very heavily built and largely electrified. The result is a plethora of columns, poles, masts, wires and other necessary, yet visually distracting elements that can make finding a clean composition a difficult task.
Throw in some graffiti, litter, and a few dodgy shadows, and a photo can appear overly busy and cluttered, so careful attention to detail is a must.
FS intercity passenger train 659 running from Milan to Ventimiglia departs Genova Piazza Principe in April 2017. Exposed using a Lumix LX7 from a public footpath west of the station.
Tracking the Light is posting automatically this week while Brian is Traveling.
