About me
My interest in trains began in 1984 when my Dad took me to the National Railway Museum in York. This interest has never gone away over the intervening years. I am fortunate that I have been able to develop my knowledge of the UK rail industry (and the wider transportation sector) in my working life.
Whilst I have been interested in photography for a number of years, my passion has always been for capturing images of railways in Britain. There has been much change since I first picked up a camera, not least as a result of privatisation in the mid-1990’s. Hopefully the pictures on the website demonstrate the scale and pace of that change.
My early photography in the late 1980’s was undertaken using a Ricoh camera which dated from the 1960’s, given to me by my late Grandfather. Through trial and error I eventually managed to take some reasonable pictures, many of which can never be repeated due to the substantial reduction in the variety of diesel and electric motive power which has taken place over the last 25 years. Looking back at these images demonstrates how important it is to record the current rail scene.
The majority of the pictures in the ‘Archive’ section were taken using a Pentax 35mm SLR camera body with a variety of standard, wide-angle and telephoto lenses too numerous to list here. The camera bodies include a Pentax ME, ME Super and Spotmatic 500, generally loaded with either 100, 200 or 400 ASA colour print film. In hindsight I now wish I had taken 35mm colour slides. It has been enjoyable nonetheless to scan these pictures for inclusion on the website. Incidentally, the scanning was undertaken using a Hewlett Packard Photosmart C5280 Printer/Scanner/Copier.
In October 2008, I decided to turn my hobby into a more serious activity by upgrading to a digital SLR, and purchased a Canon EOS 30D body. Following a short period of time using a Canon EOS 1000D and a two year spell with a Canon EOS 7D, I now have a Canon EOS 5D Mk III body fitted with either a Canon EF-L 24-105mm f4 zoom lens, Canon EF-L 70-200mm f2.8 zoom lens, Canon EF-L 70-300mm f4-5.6 zoom lens, Canon EF 35mm f2 macro lens (all with Image Stabiliser), Canon EF 100mm f2 lens or Sigma 50mm f1.4 lens. I will leave you to decide as to the quality of these cameras and the associated lenses with the pictures that I have included in the ‘Digital’ section of the website. For those of you who are interested in the technical specification of the Canon EOS 30D, 7D and 5D Mk III, please click on the links below.
As you will hopefully see from my pictures, I enjoy taking photographs of trains in their wider landscape context as well as more traditional lineside shots. Despite the availability of various software packages, I try to edit my photographs as little as possible. That said, I have used Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and more recently Adobe Lightroom to make minor enhancements to some of my pictures.
I hope you enjoy the images on my website. If you would like to contact me then please click on the relevant link from the Home page and leave your message or comment.
Adrian Hart
Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire
March 2024