A photographer of trains.

Click for purchase through Amazon. I get no payment if you do that.

Being a train photographer means your output will immediately be subject to comparison with that of O. Winston Link in much the same way a street snapper’s work will be hauled up against that of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Neither is a winning proposition.

Regardless of genre preferences, any photographer’s library should include Link’s Steam, Steel and Stars and HC-B’s The Man, the Image and the World.

On those grounds, Richard Steinheimer’s book of fine railway photographs would not be your first choice but even if you care little for railroad photography, it deserves serious consideration.

Steinheimer (1929-2011) was up against it from the start as relatively little of his long career coincided with the age of steam. A steam locomotive makes the machine the star, regardless of setting. Link’s genius was to personalize it in the guise of the proud operators in the last days of steam he so magnificently photographed. (‘Documented’ would be a rare insult, indeed). Steinheimer’s work is more detached, more focused on the machine in its expansive settings in the west. People are not his forte. Link, by contrast, added that something special with his social awareness.

Steam appeals to the romantic in us but I can assure you that there was nothing romantic about traveling in a steam train. I took one from London to Dundee, aged eight in 1959, to visit my eldest sister, then a student at St. Andrew’s University. Forgetting to close the window as we entered a tunnel, I exited covered in soot and smelling like a linebacker after the Superbowl. There was nothing romantic about it, other than to a distant observer’s viewing the Flying Scotsman’s patrician progress through the beauty of Scotland’s countryside, a head of steam defining the machine’s progress.

You could also argue that taking pictures of steam trains is rather like photographing Angelina Jolie. Even your bad ones are going to look pretty good. On that basis, O. Winston Link is the Irving Penn of train photographers.

Steinheimer certainly added a special something to his images, generally incorporating the expanses of the great American west with outstanding compositional sense. The book is well printed, if not as well as the Link one and, unlike the latter, can still be found new and unblemished. Unsurprisingly, the cover picture is of a steam train ….

The documentary is out.

I mentioned the posthumous find of Vivian Maier’s huge trove of work – over 100,000 negatives – over three years ago.

I had pretty much given up on ever seeing the promised documentary for which I had subscribed as a Kickstarter project, assuming it was just another failure, when an email arrived with a link to the movie. That has a bizarre two day expiration attached so I quickly watched it and it was exceptionally good. There’s a brief 3 minute trailer available and I should be getting the DVD soon, and recommend you do likewise.

Click the image for the trailer.

That Maier was an exceptional street photographer is clear. That she was borderline crazy and an insane pack rat is just as well, for her saving of all her negatives left a powerful legacy which we can all enjoy. Born in New York, she spent much of her youth in Alsace-Lorraine, a part of Europe which has alternated between French and German ownership, depending on which nut is running the army of the time. In truth, Maier’s borderline intrusive street work and wildly obsessive nature are, like her accented English, more German than French, but even her youthful work shows the divine spark of humor, timing and composition missing from almost all street photography today.

Highly recommended, once it becomes available. Meanwhile, the above link will also direct you to many examples of her street work.

A fine NYC street photographer.

Let’s face it. Most of what passes for ‘street photography’ today is unadulterated garbage. Invariably rendered in grainy black and white, the camera carelessly hosed around, no compositional skill in evidence, clutter everywhere and totally devoid of wit, interest or artifice.

These are not accusations which can be directed at Matt Weber’s work. The photographer has been making fine street images in New York since the 1980s in both monochrome and color and the work is witty, well timed, involving and just plain good photography.

Click the image for Matt Weber’s site.

You can buy Weber’s images by clicking the picture above and any of these would do your wall proud.

Paris in transition.

French photographer Charles Marville (1813-79) documented Paris before Baron Haussmann tore down the old city and built what we now know as the most beautiful city in western civilization. The narrow streets and crowding gave way to Haussmann’s magnificent Avenues and Boulevards, and Marville’s images are a fine record of the Paris of old.

The show is currently running at the Met in New York though May 4, 2014, and you can read more about the man and his mission in the NYT here.

Update March 2014: A fine piece from the NYT.

The real thing.

Classical photojournalism may be dying, replaced by the noise of Instagram and cell phones, but one of its greatest exponents, Jill Freedman, is still going strong.

Click the picture for the NYT Lens story.

The length to which she would go for a story or a good picture are remarkable. Click through to her blog here to read about her well known book Firehouse, documenting the tough lives of Bronx firemen.