"100 Greatest Railroad Photos" Part II

This post continues the one immediately below, discussing the images in the Trains magazine publication "100 Greatest Railroad Photos."

The third section of the publication, "Locomotives," is for me the most disappointing section, as I only found two images there of real interest. Frank Barry's Big Boy shot on page 51 interests me because in a way it is a high-key shot, with dark engine against white ground, sky, and even signals, although the up from the ground angle does leave it imbalanced, bottom heavy. The Steinheimer shot on page 54, on the other hand, is all a shot should be, black water crane against the main light source, light gray engine, dark gray sky, almost white steam, a fabulous series of contrasts with an interesting composition to boot. A beauty!

The remaining shots in this section are either documentary (nice N&W Y6's! The RGS shot is interesting for the brakeman riding the pilot) or wedges and other common views. Some of the material is topically quite interesting (a special kudo for including the Mingo Junction Alco's - I visited there at around that time as a teenager!) but not visually so.

The People section is of mixed interest. A straight person-doing-the-job shot doesn't generally interest me (two operator shots, an engineer shot, some track workers, a magazine-reading smoker in a station) and few of the shots represent compelling portraiture or action. There is little art in many of the shots here, in my view.

A few shots do catch my eye, the first being the Plowden shot of the coal pouring into a tender (and I'm not even a Plowden fan, really).The overhead shot of the Grand Central concourse is a nice abstract. Also, for some reason I am taken by the signal maintainer with the blurred train, which conveys some of the effort of making a RR go. It is documentary; I don't think it evokes any feelings of hardship or cold or something else, but I do like it.

Starting on page 85 it gets more interesting. I like the overhead shot of the track worker; it has simple lines and a nice contrast between color and bland. Furthermore, it reminds me of a favorite person/abstract shot, this one by MJ Scanlon (link only; I will try to get permission to do an embedded image soon).

The really interesting shot is on the next page, a brakeman gazing out upon the land. He has an alert look, not smiling but somehow appears to be pleased to be where he is, doing what he is doing (but is my opinion swayed by having read the caption?). The light on his face and the shade on the side is perfect and the curve of the train and the light on the land emphasize the open spaces feel. Nice portraiture, it offers a story.

The next shot is also nice, a platform action shot that is nicely framed internally and has excellent depth and movement, and the turned head of the lady is well-timed. Turning the page, the office shot is a nice view of the trappings of power: inner office, outer office, cigar (?), huge desk. Page 89 has a nice shot of traveling children, one asleep, one casually draping his arm.

I'm generally not a fan of the kid-looking-at-the-train shot, too much a cliche, but the presence and low position of the child on page 90 wonderfully highlights the size of the enormous drivers.

In the final part of what turns out to be a trilogy of posts, I will review the Environment section and then write a few things about photography then and now.