On September 17, 2019, I exposed this photograph of southward DB IC train 1919 rolling along the left bank of the Rhein near Boppard using a Nikon F3 with 50mm lens and loaded with Fuji Provia 100F.
I scanned the slide with an Epson V750 scanner and made final adjustments using Lightroom.
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My author’s advance copy of the January 2020 Trains Magazine arrived the other day.
This features my latest column titled ‘Observations from Across the Pond’
This begin with one journey and ends up some place altogether.
Tracking the Light is Brian Solomon’s DAILY Railway Photography Blog.
Cloud and mist hung over the Rhein Valley near the bend in the river at Boppard.
Sunrise made for a dramatic sky; this produced a mixing of light and dark, day with night, and color light with black& white film.
Several years someone asked me how I was making the transition from film to digital, I said, ‘I still haven’t recovered from the transition to colour!’
And here’s your proof. This was the final frame on a 36 exposure roll.
Exposed using a Nikon F3 with f1.8 50mm loaded with Kodak Tri-X.
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One September 2019 morning on Germany’s Rhein, clear skies were obscured by a thick mist hugging the river. As the warm rays of the rising sun graced the tops of the nearby hills, the mist cleared, which made for some cosmic lighting.
I exposed these photographs digitally using my FujFilm XT1. But I also exposed a few colour slides using a Nikon F3 with 105mm lens.
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The old city walls at Oberwesel, Germany feature a 13th century watch tower.
The builders of the tower were clearly railway enthusiasts ahead of their time.
Ok, so you’d have to wait for about 600 years before your first train went by!
I revisited the watch tower last month and made these photos with my FujiFilm XT1.
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Sometime, long ago, back in film days someone concluded that three-quarter sun made for the most desirable lighting conditions for locomotive photos.
While its true that in many instances low, three-quarter sun will yield a pleasing result, this is but one lighting solution, and not always the most effective for every setting.
Whoa! WAS that blasphemy?
In September, we hiked into a vineyard south of Sankt Goarshausen, Germany. Blue skies and high thin clouds gave us soft directional lighting with an elevated view of the Right Bank line on the Rhein. In the distance a castle loomed above the river-side Sankt Goarshausen village.
Opting for the dark side presented better contrast that helps visually distinguish the train from the landscape. In this situation because the setting is so visually complex and compelling it helps to make the train stand out, since the train was intended as our subject.
Sure, we could have visited this place earlier in the day, but would that have yielded more effective images?
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This place presented a composition and lighting challenge.
To obtain a satisfactory and balanced telephoto view that emphasized the classic tunnel portal at DB’s Bettunnel near Sankt Goar, we found that midday sun offered effective lighting.
A trailing view of an IC passenger train places the locomotive at the right side of the tunnel portal.
However, the sloped angle of the DB class 101 electric had a tendency to reflect the sunlight in a less than ideal way.
I compromised in post processing by adjusting the highlight values in the camera RAW file, to bring it more in line with the rest of the scene.
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Gliding along the terraced vineyards near Boppard, Germany rolls EC109 running from Hamburg to Interlaken, Switzerland.
Maybe not as fast as the ICE, but probably among the nicest types of day trains in regular service that you can travel upon. This isn’t a cruise train, but simply a scheduled stopping express, and that’s my point.
And, as you can see, it makes for great photos!
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Last week, late afternoon sun illuminated terraced vineyards south of Lorch along the Rhein’s Right Bank (east) which I thought made excellent conditions for railway photography.
I pictured double headed DB class 185 electrics leading a chemical train northward using my FujiFIlm XT1 with 18-135mm zoom lens.
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Crossing from Sankt Goarshausen to Sankt Goar, Germany on a Rhein ferry offered for some stunning views of the river’s left bank (the west side).
Atop the hill overlooking the valley is the impressive Schloss Rheinfels.
DB’s busy double track left bank mainline runs on a shelf along the Cliffside, above street level in Sankt Goar, and well below the castle.
I made these views using my FujiFilm XT1 with 27mm pancake lens.
Are they photos of a castle with a train; or are they train photos that feature a castle?
And yes, there’s a view of the tracks from the castle.
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Perched high in a 13thcentury stone tower on the Oberwesel city wall, I made this photograph of a container boat navigating up river on the Rhein as a northward freight of GATX tank cars rolls by behind a Bombardier Traxx electric.
The combination of two very busy railways, a busy water way and a medieval town set in a supremely picturesque setting make Oberwesel, Germany among my favorite places to photograph trains.
On this visit the pesky fluffy clouds tended to stay out of the way of the sun, which had been an annoyance on previous visits.
In the course of just a few hours, I exposed weeks worth of photographs. Although this view minimizes the wall itself, I made plenty of photographs of Oberwesel and its architecture.
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Last night (Wednesday, 18 Sept 2019), we waited in anticipation along the Rhein at Oberwesel as the sun was about to disappear from view behind a hillside.
The right bank of the Rhein has a busy double track railway, which all day long had been flowing with freight trains and the occasional Stadler railcar in local passenger service.
At times the freights rolled on each other’s blocks, passing every three to four minutes.
However as the final rays of sun tickled the cliffs and ships glided up and down the river, we wondered if a train might exit the Ross Stein tunnel allowing us to make use of the low and fading sun. We were near nearly ready to depart, when this freight burst into view.
I had my Lumix LX7 at the ready and exposed these photos.
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From airplane seat to platform, having transited immigration and bought a DB ticket to Boppard: 35 minutes.
Next train? 13 minutes.
Lumix LX7 photos.
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In September 2015, an Austrian Taurus electric leads a northward freight at the DB Station in Bonn Beuel, Germany.
Low angle and telephoto view add drama to compensate for an otherwise dull morning.
I experienced the new CT rail Hartford Line commuter train for the first time on Saturday.
I had this distinct sense of Déjà vu.
Then I reviewed the cover of my new book: Brian Solomon’s Railway Guide to Europe.
Wow! It’s like a German train at Berlin. Berlin, Connecticut, that is.
I’m commenting on the paint liveries, not the equipment or the services.
If you haven’t seen it, check out my latest book: Brian Solomon’s Railway Guide to Europe, now available from the Kalmbach Hobby Store.
It was a lucky shot. I was changing trains at the Köln Hauptbahnhof in 1999, when I made this photo from the platforms at the east side of the station.
A DB Class 120 electric had been specially painted by or for Märklin model trains to commemorate the 70thanniversary of Disney’s Mickey Mouse.
One of the great things about exploring German railways is a tremendous variety of trains complete with unexpected surprises in the form of specially painted locomotives, antiques on the roll, and special trains.
Germany is one of my favorite countries to visit and among the places profiled in my new book: Brian Solomon’s Railway Guide to Europe, now available from the Kalmbach Hobby Store.
https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/book/01304
My author’s advanced copy of the July 2018 Trains has been eagerly awaited.
In addition to my monthly column, I authored and illustrated two large feature articles.
The first is a detailed nuts and bolts discussion on Positive Train Control signaling, the second a travel guide to one of my favorite places: Germany’s Rhein.
I’m extremely pleased with how both stories turned out. Special thanks to my hosts at SEPTA for allowing me to better understand the intricacies of their modern signaling. And thanks to everyone at Trains Magazine for bringing these stories to print!
Brian Solomon’s Railway Guide to Europe is available from the Kalmbach Hobby Store.
The Mosel Valley is a wonderfully scenic setting to picture trains on the move.
In September 2015, my friends and I hired a car at the Köln airport and drove to the Mosel for several days of photography.
We selected this vantage point high above the railway line in Hatzenport and photographed a procession of freight and passenger trains.
I exposed this view using my FujiFilm XT1 with 18-135mm lens; ISO 640 f7.1 at 1/250th sec. White balance was set manually to ‘shade’ to warm up the scene. RAW file converted to a Jpg for presentation.
I’ve been reviewing hundreds upon hundreds of photos for my book on European Railway Travel.
Here’s a view I like but it didn’t make the cut because I’m using a similar angle that works better. It was one of several views that I made on film, although was also working with my digital cameras that day.
This pictures the famous ‘Hanging Viaduct’ in the Mosel Valley near Bullay.
Two years ago I visited this unusual railway construction with my friends Gerry Conmy, Stephen Hirsch and Denis McCabe.
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Another example of some photos that didn’t make the final cut for my book on European Railway Travel.
You might think that catching a train with medieval castles in the background is pretty neat.
It is.
But I have many photos at this curve at Oberwesel on the busy Rhein left bank route. I’ve selected several potential candidates from this excellent German location and these two just didn’t seem book worthy.
Exposed using my FujiFilm XT1.
As mentioned last week, I’m in the final lap of assembling a book on European Railway travel.
This image is among my ‘outtakes’ from the section on Germany.
I have hundreds of photos along the Rhein. I like this one because it shows the twin tunnels on the right bank opposite Oberwesel, but the wires in the sky annoy me, as does the clutter in the river at right and shrub on the left.
There’s better photos to select from for my book.
April soft sun in suburban Köln made for nice light of the modern trams. All three views at Bruck Mauspfad on the northeast side of the city.
Just a few views from the lens of my Lumix LX7: trams on the roll in Köln during my recent visit.
Köln’s extensive light rail network has endless opportunities for photographs. Over the years I made a few images, but I’ve long felt a more extensive exploration is in the cards.
Someday . . .
At the end of March 2017, I revisited the Köln Hauptbahnhof (main railway station).
It was almost 21 years since I made my first visit here with my dad back in 1996.
I was delighted to see that a few of the old East Germany class 143 electrics were still on the move. Once very common, these old electrics have become relatively scarce.
This image was exposed digitally using my Lumix LX7.
Dusk is a great time to make captivating images, provided you get the exposure right.
I made this view at Buchloe, Germany in southwestern Bavaria. It was a little while after sunset, and the cool glow of a winter’s evening sky made for some interesting lighting. The platforms at the station were lit using common sodium vapor lamps, while a lamp in the yard on the left appears to be of the mercury vapor variety.
Among the advantages of twilight is the ability to find a good balance between natural and man made light. Once the glow in the sky fades, the black of night makes balanced exposures more difficult.
Here, I opted to use a Fujichrome emulsion (probably Provia 100F) that had filtration layers designed to minimize discoloration from the spectral spikes typical of man-made lighting, such as sodium and fluorescent sources. These spikes are largely invisible to the human eye, but can produce unnatural color casts on slide films.
One of the features of this image is the old DB Class 218 diesel, a type known colloquially as a ‘Rabbit’ because of its rabbit-ear exhaust stacks.
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On 30 April 2002, I found myself in Dresden and perishing low on film.
I’d been photographing in Poland and Slovakia for the better part of two weeks and underestimated how many photos I’d make. (Those who know me well, will recall this being a common occurrence on big trips).
Anyway, I’d found a shop with some black & white film, and exposed a roll of HP5 using my Nikon N90S, (trying to stretch out what little slide film I had left), and making parsimonious use of my 120 film.
This had me in a knot, as Dresden is a visually fascinating place, and I was seeing images everywhere I looked!
When I got back to Dublin, I processed the roll of HP5 in ID11 (Ilford’s relative equivalent to Kodak’s D76) and sleeved it, but I never got around to making prints.
The other day (May 2016), I was searching for some German tram photos, when I rediscovered this roll mixed in with a host of other unprinted B&W negatives from the mid-2000s.
What immediately caught my eye was this silhouetted image of a preserved four-wheel tram. Searching the internet, I can conclude this is a museum car operated by the StrassenbahnmuseumDresden.
This group has a website:
http://www.strassenbahnmuseum-dresden.de/index.htm
And a Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/StrassenbahnmuseumDresden
Germany’s traditional large railway stations offer endless opportunities for photographic composition.
Over the years, I’ve made several visits to the Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof (main station) and have always found it photographically rewarding. I made these photos a couple of weeks ago (April 2016.)
The train-shed lends to making geometric images while providing a visually intriguing setting for train photos. I like the sense of scale that the shed offers.
Any favorites?
Several lines come together at Rastatt, Germany, which is an historic city south of Karlsruhe.
Since most through traffic is focused on to a short double track section immediately south of Rastatt , the station serves as a holding area for southward trains queued up to pass through this bottleneck.
In addition to DB’s trains, freight is run by a of variety open-access and private operators. Freights share tracks with passenger trains including high-speed TGV and ICE services and the famous Karlsruhe tram-trains.
I made this selection of images on 19 April 2016 using my FujiFilm X-T1.
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I’ll offer Freiburg as one of Europe’s most colourful tram cities.
The combination of variety of cars, a range of paint liveries (advertising and otherwise), interesting trackage plus varied and interesting historic backdrops makes Freiburg hard to top.
Any suggested contenders?
Photos below exposed in April 2016 using my FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera.
Evening sun with a textured fair-weather sky combined with well maintained paving stones and a healthy tree at left made for a visually compelling setting.
Freiburg, Germany still operates some of its vintage Duewag trams that feature a streamlined body and rounded front-end.
To make the most of the svelte classic tram I opted for a low angle and favored the angle of sun for reflective glint. The bicyclist was a fortuitous subject that makes for a more interesting photograph by introducing a human element.
To expose this image I worked my FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera with the rear live-view display tilted upward, which allowed me to compose the photo while holding the camera relatively low to the ground.
I adjusted my 18-135mm zoom lens to near its widest angle.
The real trick was keeping the composition interesting as the action rapidly unfolded.
In post-processing I darkened the sky and lightened the shadow areas to improve overall contrast.
Which of the three images is your favorite?
(This essay was composed while transiting the Channel Tunnel between Calais and Folkstone on 30 April 2016).
Among my favorite German locomotives are the old ‘Rabbits’ (classes 215-218 and rebuilds), so-called because of their rabbit-ear shaped exhaust stacks.
On Monday, 18 April 2016, Gerry Conmy, Dennis McCabe, Stephen Hirsch and I made a project photographing this declining class of diesel on the line running east from Lindau.
The Zurich-Munich long distance trains are still worked with these vintage machines. Several years earlier, Dennis and I had explored locations on this scenic non-electrified double track line.
Soft morning light aided the effect of the pastoral setting.
I exposed these views using my FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera.
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The railways around Karlsruhe, Germany are some of the most versatile and most thoroughly integrated in the world.
Karlsruhe was the pioneer of the ‘Tram-train concept,’ which enabled trams to utilize the heavy rail network.
As a result, trams can travel on city streets and reach beyond using the DB network.
Rastatt, south of Karlsruhe is a busy place where you can see high-speed passenger trains, Intercity and Regional Express passenger trains, freights, and Karlsruhe tram-trains using the same rails.
I made these views of a French TGV and tram-trains in April 2016 using my FujiFilm X-T1 digital camera. It was a bright morning and nearly ideal for photography.
The imaging challenge at Rastatt is making the shadows work for you and not against you. The curve of line, platform canopies and shadows cast by catenary masts and wires all result in visual elements that can make or break an image.
Tracking the Light posts Daily.Freiburg has a complex tram system with a great variety of equipment.
I made this view with my Lumix LX7 a week ago that features a new CAF tram gliding along cobblestone streets.
More Freiburg trams in future posts.
Would you believe that 35 of 38 frames of this roll of 35mm film were exposed of the Köln Haubtbahnhof?
Back in August 1998, I was working with an old Nikon F2 and three lenses, I wandered the platforms of this great station to preserve it on black & white film.
I processed my film at the Gallery of Photography in Dublin and made a few proof prints at the time.
The images presented here were scanned digitally from my original negatives using an Epson Prefection V600 flatbed scanner and adjusted in post processing using Lightroom.
For color photos of the Köln Haubtbahnhof and many other stations check out my new book: Railway Depots, Stations & Terminals published this year by Voyageur Press.
See: http://www.quartoknows.com/books/9780760348901/Railway-Depots-Stations-Terminals.html
I’ve visited this great German railway palace on several occasions over the last 20 years and find that it always inspires my photography.
I made these images on a visit in August 1998. All were made on one roll of Ilford HP5 exposed using a Nikon F2.
The Köln Haubtbahnhof is among great European stations featured in my new book Railway Depots, Stations & Terminals published this year by Voyageur Press. Don’t miss out, order your copy today!
http://www.quartoknows.com/books/9780760348901/Railway-Depots-Stations-Terminals.html
Also see my previous post:
http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/2015/08/30/new-book-railway-depots-stations-terminals/
In early September, my friends and I witnessed the passage of this old German class 140 electric in classic green paint.
Every day in late morning or early afternoon it would work south along the Rhein’s Right Bank (east side) with a freight.
On this day we hiked out to the Loreley statue on a peninsula near the famous Loreley Rock at bend in the river. I made these photos with my FujiFilm X-T1. As the freight drew closer, I opted to pan, which helps set apart the green locomotive from the hillside beyond.
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