A few more about Colorado's railroad heritage...
Colorado Railroad Museum, part 1
The tip came already some time ago from my German photography friend Maren Arndt. Don’t miss the Railroad Museum in Golden, if you are in this part of Colorado! Well, we finally used the last day of our journey through the southern and central part of Colorado for a visit. The kids were already back in school and so there were not very many visitors beside us. Good for photography in such a place! ;-)
I grew up in Germany traveling by trains that were pulled by steam locomotives. The smell of smoke and coal and the noise of the steam engine are deep in my memories. As a kid I often stood together with my grandpa Willy Stock on a bridge, west of the train station in my home town Bautzen, and we watched the busy traffic in the train yard. I don’t know if this had somehow influenced my decision to become a mechanic, and later a design engineer, but the technical and logistic side of railroads have always fascinated me. Going to the Colorado Railroad Museum stirred up all these good memories and I felt a little like a kid in a candy store…
I could bubble here about the technical aspects to make photos in a museum, but who cares? The bottom line for my style of photography is to keep the elements out of the frame that cry “museum”. I just want my images to tell the story about railroad heritage.
A last word about the people that work or volunteer in the railroad museum. We hear these days a lot about passion, passion in life, passion about photography, you name it. Everybody we had a conversation with in the museum, from the people at the reception desk and in the museum store to the engineers that kept some of the locomotives running, they all had a spark in their eyes, the spark of passion for railroad heritage… Love it!
Two more
Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF
Here are two more from the steam show in Sycamore, IL. Both taken in the late afternoon. If you like to see some more have a look in my gallery COUNTRYSIDE .
Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF
Last hour
Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF
They had a parade of all the steam engines and old tractors. Very nice to see all the machines actually running and moving. It started at 1:30PM and the sun was really beating down on us. Well, I haven't even worked on those pictures yet and I know it will be a lot of work to deal with the high contrast and pale colors. However, it got much better in the last hour of the show on Saturday. This is when the fun of taking pictures really came back…
More to come...
Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/f2 ZF
Steam show
About a year ago I discovered pictures from the 'Sycamore Steam Show and Threshing Bee' on another photographer's gallery. I learned on their website that this year was the 54th show in Sycamore, Illinois. I wanted to go there in 2010 because these old steam engines and tractors are an interesting subject for photography, but than I almost forgot about it. Thank you Dan for reminding me of this event!The light was harsh as it can get here in the Midwest on a hot and humid day in August. Despite the heat I decided to stay until evening and hope for better light. More to come...
