Theme Photographs

If a picture says 1000 words, several pictures can say much, much more. Photographs that follow a theme, sometimes called a series, have always impressed me but they do present a new challenge.  Here is a series I made after a trip to a railroad museum.  All were shot on a Rolleiflex f2.8 on HP5 film over two rolls.  

I opted for an odd number of pictures, and selected some that would hint at the subject without being too obvious. I have a wonderful picture of the train engine, but for a theme to tell its story, you can't have a single image that tells 90% of the story.

The first picture, I call 555 due to the car number that was painted, and bled down the side of the car. The composition was the trick for this show as I wanted both wheels and still include the 555 in the image.  The fact that neither numbers or wheels are in the center of the image helps balance out the composition.  

In the Darkroom I opted for Ilford Fiber Based paper and a medium selenium toning after and archival wash (the same process for all three).  It was temperature dried for about 85% and then air dried for the remainder.  Finally dry mounted and framed.  It is a powerful image of industrialization and its capitulation to time. As we move to the digital age, the massive machines that pulled us into the modern age are now left to rot in the shade of the new vehicles of modernization.

The second image is of the connection between two railcars, I loved the heavy iron, the deep blacks and the power that the image shows. Almost as if the rail cars are holding on to each other for this, their final journey into oblivion. Perhaps too obvious of a personification!

​The third and final is of the bogies (the wheels of a train are called bogies).  Here I loved the silver reflection of the light and the deep black of the iron.  All of this broken up by the white paint.  Still, in the middle of its final trip to oblivion, the trains are still magnificent. 
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The texture of these images is massive and there is almost a 3D effect of them which is a testament to the lens quality of the Rolleiflex.  The images are printed on 8x10 giving it a nice mix of size and intimacy with the viewer.