turf | Tracking the Light

A Busy, Bright and Clear Day Visiting Irish Narrow Gauge.

A laden Bord na Mona approaches Lanesborough in October 2013. Canon EOS 7D with f2.8 200mm lens. Photo unmodified except for scanning. — A laden Bord na Mona approaches Lanesborough in October 2013. Canon EOS 7D with f2.8 200mm lens. Photo unmodified except for scaling.

Last week, Mark Healy and I made another venture to photograph Bord na Mona’s (Peat Board) three-foot gauge industrial railway. This time we chose the network focused on feeding the Lough Rea Power Station at Lanesborough in County Longford.

Although we departed Dublin under cloudy skies, by the time we reached the Midlands, the clouds parted and we enjoyed most clear sunny weather for the remainder of the day.

Empty train heads out for reloading against a backdrop of the Lough Rea Power Station at Lanesborough. Canon EOS 7D with f2.8 200mm lens. Photo unmodified except for scanning. — An empty train rocks and rolls as it heads out for reloading against a backdrop of the Lough Rea Power Station at Lanesborough. Canon EOS 7D with f2.8 200mm lens. Photo unmodified except for scaling.

From past experience, I’ve found that clear days are by far the best time to photograph Bord na Mona’s trains at work. The heavily harvested moon-like landscape of the peat bogs doesn’t translate as well on dull days. Also, the brown and cream livery on the locomotives and aluminum peat wagons look best with sun on them.

Finding a clear day in the Irish Midlands isn’t so easy. The weather is famously dull and changeable. On more than one occasion I’ve found that a forecast for fine weather proved overly optimistic.

For this excursion, I brought four cameras. Yes, four. In addition to the two digital cameras (Lumix LX3 and Canon EOS 7D), I had my Canon EOS-3 and a Rollei Model T 120-size camera both loaded with Fujichrome Provia 100F.

There’s certain types of images that I still like to put on film. Also, while I expose a lot of digital images (and make multiple back-ups of each and every file) I’m very reluctant to trust digital imaging for long term applications.

So, in the event of a digital apocalypse, I’d like to have a few Bord na Mona photos on color transparency film for posterity.

My film has yet to be processed, so here are a few of my recent digital results.