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Starting young – how I got into photography

For as long as I can remember I have always had a fascination with steam and, like many boys before me, I wanted to be a steam engine driver when I grew up!

As I got older, the thought of the very long hours and what could be many years of working up the grades to become a driver or fireman has frequently put me off that idea. Needless to say, if the opportunity arose, I would still love to have a go. This passion has probably come about due to my dad, who works as a volunteer guard, regularly taking me to visit local railways from a very young age.

I have always wished to be part of a preserved railway and increase my involvement, instead of just standing on the platform edge watching trains go past, like most other people. I was about 12 when I started to investigate what I could and couldn’t do around a railway and where there were no age limits and health and safety rules stopping me from doing the jobs I was interested in.

Before this, I had previously been a member of the Bluebell Railway’s 9F club which encourages children from the age of nine upwards to help out once a month in the locomotive department. After joining as soon as I could at the age of nine I made regular working visits to the railway, cleaning the engines and shovelling the ash from the pits after the day’s engines had gone off shed.

Apart from this, I found out that there was not much you can actively do on a preserved railway at that age, with 18 being the minimum for most activities.
This is why I started to become interested in railway photography and as I soon found out, I was better than I thought I was at it…

Purely by chance I started to borrow my dad’s compact digital camera during visits to various railways around the country, mainly to the Bluebell again but also while on holiday to places like North Wales, where railways are in abundance. At first I took pictures from the ends of platforms of engines running round their trains; however, I quickly exhausted many of these locations.

With stations having a fairly limited choice of places to choose from, I was soon looking for more exciting locations between stations and on bridges. I started by looking at other people’s photos and local Ordnance Survey maps for inspiration and found several nearby locations which had clearly been used by other photographers.

From now on, my dad rarely saw his camera as I began to take more pictures. To begin with my pictures included trees growing out of the tops of engines chimneys and parts of trains were ‘chopped off’ by accident! As time went on, I gradually discovered a new found skill and those minor mistakes turned into, what I thought to be, half decent pictures.

I began to send the odd one or two photos to the Bluebell Railway’s website and this led to me getting a few of my photographs published on it. I got an immense thrill out of seeing my name in print and knowing that my photos were being seen by a much wider audience. Gradually, as time went on and my photos were continuing to be included in updates to the website I noticed that people were beginning to know my name. They were remarking how good my photos were when seeing me around the railway. Whether they meant it or were just being kind I don’t know but this gave me the encouragement to continue to produce more and higher quality photos, with the knowledge that they were being appreciated.

In April 2006, I sent an email containing a few of my best shots to a couple of the national magazines and to my surprise one of my images was subsequently published of LSWR B4 0-4-0T No 96 Normandy standing at Horsted Keynes. I couldn’t believe my luck, my first photo, from my first email, published in a magazine which would be seen by several thousands of people. I showed the magazine to everybody I knew pointing out page 89 in particular!

Just over a year later, I entered a countrywide photographic competition, which had been advertised in another magazine. By now I had amassed several hundred, if not a thousand, images taken during the previous 18 months from which I could choose the best ones with which to enter the competition. After trawling through them for some time and with help from my parents, I submitted six of my best photos for the judges to look at. Out of curiosity, I showed the images to a teacher at school, who was also interested in photography. He looked at them carefully and picked the one he thought had the best chance of winning.

The photo in question was, to my surprise, awarded second place in the under 18 category of the competition and you can imagine my excitement, coming second out of 75 other entries. At the time of the competition I was 13 years old and one of the prizes I received was a framed print of my image which is now displayed, pride of place, on my bedroom wall!

One thing that I had always wanted to prove since taking up photography was that you didn’t need a posh camera with a long lens to be successful. This, I believe I have proved, just by using a relatively cheap compact camera and hopefully a bit of skill and patience.

In July 2007 I took part in my first photo charter, again at the Bluebell Railway, organised by Jon Bowers, with Bulleid Pacific No 34028 Eddystone running as No 34021 Dartmoor. I found this experience so much fun, even though I was the youngest participant by a long way. More recently, I took part in the second half of a charter one evening and when asked why I hadn’t attended the first part by fellow photographers, they couldn’t believe it when I told them that I had been to school earlier in the day!