A New Year Miscellany
The Railroad and the Art of Place: An Anthology
Unlike most industries with a footprint measured in square feet, or perhaps several acres, the railroad reaches out into the American landscape to touch lonely rural outposts, big cities, and small towns. The railroad pushes over mountains and through uninhabited deserts. It spans rivers and streams as it stitches the country together with steel rails. And every place the railroad touches is changed by it, and the railroad is altered by each place it passes through.
As the title suggests, this book is a collection of photographs by thirty contemporary and historical photographers who explore this interplay between the landscape and the railroad, and how ordinary and often overlooked places can be transformed into art, the art of place that illuminates the railroad in our landscape, our history, our culture and ourselves.
The Railroad and the Art Of Place: An Anthology is a great addition to you reading list for 2022, and is available from The Center for Railroad Photography & Art. It is sure to stimulate new ways of thinking about photography and the railroad.
End of the Line
Several years ago, I had the privilege of hearing John Free talk about a remarkable collection of photographs he made in Southern Pacific’s Taylor Yard in Los Angeles, California. It was a memorable and moving presentation
In the 1970s, John photographed the down and out inhabitants of the rail yards; the tramps, hobos and homeless. He took the time to get to know these people, to share their lives and experience, and produced a collection photographs that sing their stories with empathy and compassion.
These images have recently been gathered into a book. End of the Line brings together John’s gritty black and white prints and the story of their creation into a beautiful and moving tribute to the “Home Guard of Taylor Yard,” in a time and place that now exist only in memory.
End of the Line is available at John Free’s website: https://johnfreephotography.com/book/
A Little Housekeeping
The Trackside Photographer’s publication schedule will change in 2022. New articles will now appear on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. The Editor’s Notebook column will publish on the first Thursday of the month, and the third Thursday will be open for whatever comes along–another article, a new video, etc. For those of you who have subscribed to the monthly email newsletter, it will continue to go out on the Friday after the last Thursday of the month.
I look forward to 2022, and hope you will join us. Submissions are always welcome and we would love to have you as part of The Trackside Photography community. Submission guidelines are here.
Questions, comments, suggestions? Please feel free to contact me at info@thetracksidephotographer.com.
Have a safe and prosperous New Year!
Edd Fuller, Editor