One Man and his Camera

[chrisf]

This book celebrates the railway photography of the late Trevor Owen.  It has been compiled by Paul Chancellor, proprietor of Colour-Rail, who is the custodian of Trevor's work.  The foreword is by Nick Pigott, until recently Editor of Railway Magazine.

 

The choice of the approximately 200 photographs in the book must have been both very difficult and a labour of love.  They cover much of the UK but inevitably some areas receive greater coverage than others, the Cambrian and the Thames Valley being particularly well represented.  He was adept at capturing trains in the landscape, be it industrial or countryside, and was not afraid to include everyday objects in his images that others might have chosen to omit.  Fortunately for posterity his colour images, dating from the 1950s, were shot on Kodachrome slide film which has proved durable and colour-fast.  

 

The wide variety of images in the book is a joy to behold and reveals much about the bygone railway, such as piebald trains and locomotives in less than top condition.  The captions are informative, though in places they dwell needlessly on the life history of the locomotive portrayed.  Perhaps inevitably there are a few oddities.  The description of the upper photograph on page 45 refers to Insulfish vans when closer inspection reveals the suspect vehicles to be insulated containers mounted on conflats!  The caption to the lower picture on page 123 suggests that all the carriages appear to be suburban but four of them bear blood and custard livery and are clearly corridor vehicles.  Lovers of diesel traction will be disappointed unless they like a rake of Met-Cams hiding in the shadows of Bath Green Park or a less than four year old Pressed Steel set at Paddington looking in less than good nick.  Lovers of the less than obvious, on the other hand, will be delighted with some of the shed and workshop shots.

 

The book is published by Pendragon and is good value at £30.  It is even better value if ,like me, you were able to take advantage of the pre-production offers open to Backtrack readers!

 

Chris