KWVR- Centenarian 4F

We've been members of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway for a while now, and had managed a surprising amount of lineside photography considering the railway hadn't been able to operate much this year with the horrible situation, but we hadn't managed a trip on the trains since they restarted after lockdown.  We finally got a chance during early October...

On my daily exercise I've ended up being in the right place at the right time to see works and engineering trains (the KWVR wasn't running a public timetable mid-week), but I haven't been terribly happy with the pics.  Poor lighting, poor weather, poor locations.  I'd become a little bit out of practise to be frank.

Anyway, on Saturday the 10th, the trains were being operated by 4F-class 43924.  This veteran of the railway is celebrating its 100th birthday in October, it seemed fitting considering the weekend was technically a birthday treat for myself and Middle Child.

We'd booked a compartment for the day in the regular stock, rather than the Pullman carriages at the swankier end of the train.

Another stalwart of the fleet was out and about on works train duties for the staff and volunteers, the class 101 DMU.

We passed the unit several times throughout the day.

Though we'd booked the compartment for the day, we only did three trips.  Without being able to go anywhere or do anything off the train (we'd normally take The Childs up to the playground in Haworth for example), it was getting a tad dull just sitting in the carriage all day.  Me and Younger Child headed up to Haworth later to get a shot of the last train of the day to Oxenhope.

The loco was out again on the Sunday, and myself and Younger Child were out for a walk, and to take a few pictures (as well as look for wildlife for her homework).

Another works train, class 37 propelling a brake van to Keighley.

A fun weekend, nice to be able to both go on the trains and get some pictures, and a happy distraction before some real-life related troubles hit the following week.

Published in the November issue of Steam Railway...

...and on a related note, a pic inside the KWVR's house-mag for Autumn 2020, more shots of the Bridge 11 work.

 

Alternate History Worth Valley; Pacers on Bridge 11

I thought I'd pretty much done Bridge 11 on the Keighley and Worth Valley to death this year; from being involved in an ever so small way with documenting the replacement of the structure, to photographing a number of 'firsts' on the bridge (first steam test train, etc).  And then this happened.

The KWVR had been storing a large number of redundant Pacer trains (classes 143 and 144) on behalf of Northern, and as the Lockdown eased, they were to gradually head to new homes, either preservation sites or scrappers.  Anyway, one morning I'd spotted a Facebook post with shots of the trains in use, and me and Elder Child went for a mooch around, to see what was happening.

We arrived at Bridge 11, and the adjacent tunnel, right as the train did, crawling up the valley.

It paused for a while on the bridge itself, allowing me to get a few snaps in the sunshine.

Rail Express liked the image, and gave it a half-page spread in the September issue.  It makes for a pleasant 'What If?' shot anyway- the whole point of the KWVR being preserved originally was to provide a public service, only by the time British Railways had finished arsing about with the legal paperwork, all the regular passengers had switched to the bus.  This kind of shot (especially with the modern housing) makes it look like the railway never closed, and that Northern were still operating the public service, as this is exactly the type of train that could have been running on the line.  It's also a good indicator of the sort of possibilities the line could offer to film and tv companies, given they own one of these sets now too.

As a kind of postscript, I was out to photograph the last two sets leaving the railway, heading for Worksop.  I got them on the mainline at Utley, after they'd been up to Skipton.

I've been photographing trains on the Airedale line for about 15 years now, and it seems a little odd that these stalwarts are gone; this might well be the last run of a Pacer on this line for good now.  I know they have their detractors, but the design philosophy was sound enough, and a lot of train services would have got the chop in the Thatcher/Major years were it not for them.

A surprise late publication of one of the shots, in the Worth Valley's in-house mag in the Autumn of 2020.

KWVR- Coughs and Sneasels, Big Diseasels...

It's that time of year again, the joy that is the HMRC Self Assesment.  Somewhat delayed this year by us having to return to Home Schooling during a period of Self Isolation, so whilst we're too busy to do any newer blog posts, here's some railway photography from September.  The month saw the return of the large diesel locomotives to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway for a day- in the past I've done quite well for pictures of heritage diesel locomotives, so I wanted to get out and take some photographs after the veritable drought of stuff to snap this year.  

Me and The Childs arrived in our usual stomping ground at Damems nice and early, and had a stroll, looking for suitable locations.  I was quite drawn to this, the pool in the former sluice gate controls for the old millponds.

It was rather nice in our usual location though, so I was a bit torn for where to go.

In the end, I figured it would be best to try a new angle, so we went back to the sluice gates.

Problem was, the angle didn't quite work out, as it happened.  Couldn't quite get the angle right for a reflection shot.

The steam service with the 2MT on vintage stock was snapped from the more usual spot, though the sun was starting to go in a bit at this point.

By the time it returned from Keighley, the sky was becoming somewhat cloud-covered.

Indeed, by the time of the next diesel hauled run, the sun and blue sky was irritatingly absent.

We headed up to the far end of the valley for a change.  20031 heading for Keighley.

We relocated again to Haworth later on.

Playing around with the long-exposures.

The 2MT again.  Thought I'd try this one in greyscale as it was getting a bit murky.  A colour version of this shot ended up getting used by the KWVR for one of their update/roster emails.

Back up on the Sunday, no diesels about but I wanted to try and get some better shots of the 2MT.  Lighting isn't quite right here in the afternoons, but we were busy in the morning.

We'd also been back to Damems.

Class 101 DMU on route-refresher duties for the staff.  Didn't hang around, some eejit has decided to start hooning it around the woods here on a scrambler bike.

Still, the weather might not have played ball, but it was nice getting out to photograph trains on a day where there was a service every half-hour or so.  Almost like being back to normal...

Fun in the sun, from under the water

"Inflate-Deflate" is one of those projects that I (Ben) have been working on, here and there, since University.  There's something appealing about doing nice bright, abstract, colourful pictures every now and again as a break from the more usual work.  And on a gloomy, cold Autumn afternoon, here's a post about a day at the beach.

Having started as a studio shoot, most of the recent shots have been out on location on deserted Welsh beaches in the middle of the night (or a more sociable early evening during the winter), such as the above, a prospective promotional shoot for the company that made those inflatables.  I was meant to be doing another of these shoots during the early spring this year for a competition brief/open call, but Covid put paid to that, because why have anything fun, bright, colourful or playful in 2020...

However, in 2019 I got some interest (and a publication) of the above shot, which was a daylight one taken whilst Amy was shooting some underwater pics with her new camera a few years back.  So this summer, we were back in Wales in that lovely gap between catastrophes, the weather was meant to be nice, and The Childs were desperate for a play in the sea with some toys, and it seemed like a good opportunity to get some more shots for the underwater part of the project.

The beach in question makes a lovely location for this shoot (and for The Childs to play in general, as the sea is ridiculously calm and shallow- seriously, you can walk about half a mile and the sea never gets above your waist).

We took a big bag of inflatables, bought cheaply over the years for various parts of this shoot.  Given there's environmental concerns about plastic in the oceans, and people discarding beach toys (a theme that this project addresses) it's fitting somehow to be using stuff that we bought 15 years ago as photo props for our Uni fashion photography/ still-life projects.  

As the above shows though, one of the problems with using the special underwater compact cameras is the focussing, as the kit tends to be a bit variable in quality (and our laughable low budgets certainly don't extend to buying an underwater-spec SLR).  Oddly enough it was the newer compact underwater camera that was less reliable, so we ended up switching to the older backup cam after an hour.

The other problem- the water is so shallow you can't actually get bodily down under the water to see exactly what you're shooting through the viewfinder... We've often talked about how nice it would be to have access to a private swimming pool for a few hours for this shoot (and other underwater stuff).

And don't they print a lot of health and safety info on stuff these days?

A lot of sand and things drifting around in the water too.

I was aiming to get some nice, abstract shots.  Shame the sunlight wasn't brighter (it was at least a nice hot day).

The shoot kind of worked; the problem was that the better, more colourful props had been leant to a fellow photographer last year, and Covid meant he hadn't been able to post them back.  What toys we did have for a family day at the beach were based more around play value to The Childs than their aesthetic properties for this shoot.

Honestly though, the other people on the beach must have thought we'd looted a toyshop, we were in and out of the sea so frequently with half a dozen rings, a couple of beach balls, three inflatable unicorns and a lilo...

Not sure about the fad this year for glitter-filled stuff, even more waste and mess when the toys pop I'd imagine.  Still, it's not about practicality, probably more to do with vacant-eyed teenagers posing for poolside selfies on insta.

The pics seem to work best with a little tweaking of the contrast afterwards in post-production.

Having only managed the odd experimental shot in the past, this session at least meant that I was able to get enough pics to form a decent selection for future open calls (there's one on the cards as I type this in November).  Sadly we didn't get chance to go for a second shoot, as the weather turned, and we thought 'ah well, maybe when we go back to Wales in the autumn'.  Then Drakeford started channelling Owain Glendowr and kept the borders shut.

Maybe next year.  At least there's a few shots for a potential open-call that's coming up.