Railway Photography
In 1948 Ivo Peters returned to serious railway photography on the Somerset and Dorset Railway, and his 4.25 litre Mk.VI Bentley B31KL, registration NHY 581, soon became a regular lineside visitor whilst his photographs were published in Trains Illustrated and other magazines.
Although particularly associated with his "home line" of the S&D, Peters had other favourite photographic locations. These included Grayrigg to Tebay on the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway in the last years of steam; the Western Region of British Railways; the Southern Region West of England Main Line; British industrial narrow gauge railways, particularly the East Midlands ironstone and North Wales slate lines; steam locomotives of the National Coal Board; and the 3 feet (910 mm) gauge Isle of Man Railway and Tralee and Dingle Light Railway. On many photographic expeditions he was accompanied by his friend Norman Lockett.
His most characteristic railway photographs display the surrounding landscape to advantage. He said "I have to admit that the technical side of photography has never really 'bitten' me... For me, one of he greatest pleasures of railway photography has been when I have discovered some enchanting new location, and then set about trying to get the most attractive picture of the scene."
From 1959 his black-and-white photography was supplemented by colour 16mm cine film, around 25,000 ft (7,600 m) being exposed on railway subjects (and as much again on aircraft). Some of the railway material was much later broadcast on BBC Television and transferred to VHS and DVD by Railscene as "The Ivo Peters Collection". His still photography in colour was confined to the diesel era, and is represented in his book Railway Elegance.
Read more about this topic: Ivo Peters
Famous quotes containing the words railway and/or photography:
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)