KWVR... Pacer by Night

The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway Beer and Music Festival is one of those events which offers the chance for a lot of night photography of trains, with a frequent service to cut-down on the standing around waiting in the dark.  The Thursday tends to be quieter in terms of people at the event, but has a nice, regular service by the DMU fleet.

Last year I had some success with the new Pacer, the modern lighting inside being bright and giving me some nice images.  In previous years I've gone out to the countryside for pics, but with the Worth Valley having an epidemic of poaching, and nasty teenagers, at the moment I thought for the sake of personal safety I'd stick to the stations.  Oakworth has the nicest atmosphere; quiet, but a manned station, lights on, fire lit, it has a loo, and the lighting on the station is very atmospheric.

For technical reasons though I was using my old SLR, which hasn't been the same since the last night shoot I did on the beach in Wales earlier in the year.  No matter how much it's cleaned, it's still lens-flare-o-rama.

One shot I was quite happy with last year was a long-exposure of the Pacer pulling out of the station, with a moonlit sky behind it.  The shot ruined slightly be a tiny amount of blurring... I tried again this year, but if anything the sky was too dark.

Me and Elder Child (who was getting some reference shots for an art project) took the opportunity to get some reference pics whilst we waited for the Pacer to come back.

A bit better; the sky was nicer last year, but there's less blurring in this shot at least.

We thought we'd try a bit of monochrome work around the station too.

Whilst I'm at it, a moody edit of one of the pics into black and white.

We could have stayed at Oakworth, but thought for variety we'd head up to one of the other stations.  Oxenhope was too busy with punters on the first night of the beer festival, so we headed for Haworth instead.

Again, almost too dark, but then the trees on the right block out most of the ambient light.

By this point it was getting on for 9pm, which is a bit late for us on a school night (but not too late for the gang of teenagers who'd been drinking on the forecourt, and who'd clocked us... frankly I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of trying to photograph with them leaping 'hilariously' into shot) so we set off for home, with a plan to get some steam pics the next night, when there'd be more trains running.