Photo Charters – Are They Just a Tired Cliché?

We've all seen the hundreds of pictures posted online over the last few days of the 9F photo charter on the Great Central Railway. The first day was blessed with sun – making for some lovely backlit pictures at dawn. I heard some comments comparing them to the work of Colin Gifford – someone whose work I've never really warmed to. Yes, sure his pictures are, like the pictures made on the photo charter,  technically excellent – but where's the emotion, the wider connection? I find that charters and Gifford's work are often a tired cliché – very often involving backlit trains and little in the way of  human interest. Charters have developed a taste for, what is commonly referred to, 'man with a lamp' – where someone poses with a lamp, pretending to carry out some task or other. Having once been a rail magazine editor, I just know that editorial inboxes will be flooded with near identical pics from a dozen or more charter photographers. I would always avoid using such images, as I knew that there was a strong possibility that a rival magazine would publish the same image. There are many excellent rail photographers that I would publish ahead of a pic from a charter.

Speaking as a professional journalist, author and photojournalist of over 20 years standing – I stay well clear of photo charters. They have zero historical value – one thing that can't be said about Gifford's work – and are nothing more than a Miss Marple type film set, where it's all a big illusion. On the plus side they provide a lot of enjoyment to many and raise much needed revenue for heritage railways.

When making railway pictures, the ingredient I look for above anything else, is people. I can, and have, spent hours on Stafford and Crewe stations – to name just two – making hundreds of candid pictures of passengers and staff, with trains taking a supporting role in the images. Yes, I do make  'normal' pictures of trains too, as clients who use the photo library sometimes want a straight forward image – so I have to cater for them too.

Who do I rate as great rail photographers? One person is someone who shared the same initials as Gifford, namely Colin Garratt. Colin and I worked together (he would hire me in as a freelance for big jobs, where I always made sure I retained copyright of the images!) on numerous projects – both of us having the same belief in what makes a stunning photograph. For example, Colin's images of steam locomotive building in China and scrapping British locomotives in India are unbeatable – the human element to the fore in most images. What would railways be without humans? 

Ogle Winston Link, another photographer who will endure and inspire for eternity. Again, he often include people in photographs – why do so many contemporary photographers have a near phobia about including people in their rail pictures? 

Hans Steeneken, a brilliant photographer who only produced one book – but what a book it was!  'All Trains To Stop' is a must for any rail photographer to study. 

I recently managed to pick up a copy of Peter Cavalier's 'Rail and Steam', a book first published in 1982. Although relatively few pictures contain people – it's far removed from a train photo book and conveys an often gloomy look at the managed decline of the network during this period, but in a thoughtful and creative way.

The Bradford Barton books of the 1970s and 1980s often included work that went agains the grain of the 3/4 front view of a train that occupied the whole of the frame. H.L. Ford was particularly good at making pictures that made the train just part of the image – it travelling through the countryside or where infrastructure such as signals shared the limelight wth the train. His wide views often saw the train occupying a small part of the frame – and they were all the better for it. Indeed, in many instances he didn't even record the locomotive number – merely stating that it was a class 52 etc. I much prefer his work to the more unadventurous work of Norman Preedy – someone else who featured heavily in Bradford Barton books.

Most of Chime Whistle Publishing books are not of the photo book variety. I believe that readers want much more than page after page of pictures – My 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Train' trilogy (third book due out next year) contain hundreds of creative pictures, accompanying the text. The high sales and good reviews are evidence that the discerning reader will happily buy a book, if it is a quality product and a product that is unique (in a good way!) to that publisher.

There are many talented rail photographers who are not perpetually stuck in the ad nauseam cycle of photo charters – it is their pictures that have real significance. 

Rail Picture Library Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/190687851@N02/

Chime Whistle books: https://www.chimewhistle.co.uk/shop