Photography News issue 23

Technique 26

Photography News Issue 23 absolutephoto.com

Timeline events

Timeline Events run by Neil Cave has been in business for 17 years. “There are other people organising rail shoots like this, but I’m the only one doing it as a business,” he says. “I am a professional photographer and do weddings and other commercial work but I do work mostly on this business now. My goal is to make good events for photographers and I’m aiming for 100 events a year. “Trains and railways is a big area for me because that’s where the business began and I have a passion for the subject. It started because you couldn’t go to a preserved railway and get good pictures when the trains were running for the public – so it’s case of organising it for yourself. Now it’s all about detail. “Aircraft, boats, buses, vintage vehicles, anything heritage, and I always try to put a human element into the shoot. We are doing more events which are just people so we have re-enactors in scenes. Last month we ran one with 20 re-enactors and we just recreated scenes from the past. “The re-enactors make the shoots. I have an event with a Lancaster bomber with seven crew members, all dressed according to where they sat on the plane. They bring that attention to detail and we just direct them. The Lancaster shoot we’ve done for five years and each time we have in excess of 100 people. “I’m happy to look at anything so if anyone has an idea, let me know. I’m looking at doing a vintage ploughing contest next summer with horses and steam traction engines. Generally, it’s heritage subjects we shoot, with the odd exception. For instance, we have had a few days with the yachts during Cowes week.” timelineevents.org

Steaming ahead For close-up access to great subjects, try an organised photo event. Chief conductor Will Cheung gets stoked up to tackle some vintage steam locomotives

Set up for success? Neil and his team, including volunteers from the Centre, set up scenes, posed willingly and generally got photographers in the right place for the set-up shots. Some set-ups, to be honest, did nothing for me on a creative level but were still worth recording and just enjoying. Taking on coal and an engine on a manual turntable were interesting but I didn’t shoot much. To be fair, I think I was the exception. Things got much more interesting later on at twilight, when lights were set up, engines moved around and volunteers posed for us. With exposures running into several seconds, Pete, one of Neil’s team, took control and told us when to shoot as the models held their poses for a minute or so. He also dispensed exposure advice, too. With so many photographers and limited viewpoints across the front of the engine shed, Pete did encourage – with modest success – everyone to move around so that we would all have the chance to get various shots from different viewpoints. The event was fun and I got a couple of nice shots but all I did was push the remote release so I’m not sure how much of me was in those shots. This is no reflection on this event, but this is the nature of group shoots. The final staged event was the engines emptying the coals. The chance for a couple of long exposures as the driver, under Neil’s guidance, sprinkledcoalsdown fromfootplate. With that, most people headed for the exit – it was very late by now – and I’m sure they had some great shots on their cards to enjoy and got their money’s worth. It cost £50 per person and for a five-hour experience that is very good value indeed. Events like these do throw up photo opportunities not available when such places are open normally, so they’re definitely well worth considering.

There are many steam preservation railways around the country and they are popular tourist attractions. For photography, their popularity can be a challenge but there are plenty of photographer-friendly events at reasonable prices where there is greater freedomand the chance to get shots that would otherwise not be possible. For my foray into the world of steam I attended a Timeline Event at Didcot Railway Centre. I packed a Nikon D800, 16-35mm, 24- 120mm and 70-300mm zooms plus a Fujifilm X-T1 with the 56mm f/1.2. A tripod and remote release completed my kit. The joining instructions said that I should be on-site at 5pm – the Centre closes to the public at 4.30pm – for a briefing by Neil Cave, who runs Timeline Events. He basically gave

a run-down of timings, of what was going to happen and what the overall plan for the evening was, with events ending around 10.30pmwith fire disposal (pictured above). Speaking to my fellow shooters and looking around I’d say that there was a mix of people with different needs and ideas. I’d guess that the majority were steam enthusiasts first and photographers second, some were photographers who enjoy steam and some, like me, were just aiming to get the most from this special opportunity. Facing the crowds As with any group shoot (there were 44 people on this one), there are limits and frustrations. I prefer to get in close exploring detail and enjoy wide-angle lenses. That meant I got in the way – not by design – a couple of times. During the evening I wasn’t the only one to stand in the wrong place or walk into shot to spoil an exposure. Late on, a torch-wielding chap walked straight into my two-minute exposure but the shot was rescued on the computer. That sort of thing happens so you just have to deal with it. Not wanting to get in the way, I shot more with a telezoom and went for tightly framed shots. I think not being a steam enthusiast helped because I didn’t feel the need to get more of the overall scene in shot. The evening had started with cloud cover but we got bright sun a couple of hours later. Regardless of the light, one of the technical issues was exposure. When you have very dark subjects even a grey sky means that contrast is extreme. I was shooting Raw with both cameras in aperture-priority AE and multi-segment metering. I checked the histogram and used compensation occasionally but mostly I left the cameras to their own devices, with my fingers firmly crossed that the latitude of Raw would give me the chance to recover tones later in Lightroom – it did!

There are plenty of photographer-friendly events at reasonable prices where there is greater freedom to get shots Above Better access: shooting at organised events, like this one at Didcot Railway Centre, means you have greater freedom to use creative techniques like long exposures.