Time Travel

A photograph can do many things. It can capture a special moment, convey moods, and sometimes it can also invite you to dream. The complex technology captivates you, the many wheels and levers take you on a journey through time, into a fantasy world somewhere between Sodor and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea…

The Story behind the Picture

Railroading was my first hobby – Starting with the classic Märklin H0 starter pack with metal tracks and the three-axle steam locomotive with item number 3000. That was Christmas 1980. With the model railroad at home, the enthusiasm for the real railroad grew – fortunately, the Railway Museum Darmstadt-Kranichstein on site offers a good opportunity to upgrade the hobby accordingly. For more than 30 years now, I have been volunteering there in my spare time and enjoy being able to move freely between the historic locomotives and carriages.

A steam locomotive like this radiates something special. Even if it just stands there, it is not just a machine; it is a sleeping creature waiting to come back to life, puffing, hissing and groaning, to unfold its full power. You can see the power it is capable of developing – and quickly get a feeling for how much work was – and still is – necessary to keep it running. In spite of all my enthusiasm, I have never been involved in operational service at the museum – contrary to all the teasing of my classmates in school, I did not become an engineer. But I do enjoy guiding groups of visitors around the grounds on Sundays and explaining the historical technology.

The end of the tour through the roundhouse is always marked by our “Jumbo”, the heavy freight steam locomotive 44 404; with a length of more than 22 metres (72 feet), 171 tons service weight and almost 2,000 hp, a truly impressive appearance. It is easy to forget that modern electric locomotives are four times as powerful at half the weight.

The special thing about the 44 is that you can visit its driver’s cab and get a first-hand impression of the workplace of the engineer and stoker. Many visitors are at first completely overwhelmed by the many hand wheels, levers and gauges. During the explanations it quickly becomes clear why operating such a machine requires many years of training.

But the very special moments in the railway museum for me are those when I am all alone in the roundhouse after closing time. When everything is quiet, and the historical lighting at dusk creates an atmosphere in which not only light and shadow, but also present and past melt together and the imagination goes on a journey. I often feel transported back to the books of Jules Verne; stories like “From the Earth to the Moon” or “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, which I read all in my youth. Even though I (unfortunately) no longer have the books, the illustrations in them have remained in my memory to this day – and are ultimately the inspiration for the photo we are talking about here.

The Photo

The picture was taken on a cold January evening after sunset. While the blue light of dusk shines through the windows, the driver’s cab is illuminated by a single incandescent light bulb under the ceiling of the cab. I sat down in the coal box of the towed tender and set up my camera with a tripod there. With an ultra wide angle lens (Tokina 11-20 mm on the Canon 760D), it was possible to capture the whole cab in one picture despite the limited space. The challenge lay in the lighting: while some signs and gauges shone brightly, other areas were in complete darkness. After the focal length (11 mm), aperture (ƒ/8), ISO value (100) and focus were set manually, I started playing with the shutter speed. In the end, five pictures were taken with 2, 4, 8, 15 and 30 seconds exposure time.

The Post-processing

First, I imported the five pictures into Adobe Lightroom and combined them into a single HDR (High Dynamic Range) image. Then I made all the essential adjustments to the lighting and colors, using more contrast, clarity and sharpness than usual. Then I went on to Photoshop. Besides further local exposure and color corrections, the main goal here was to achieve the “gritty look”. The editing is deliberately exaggerated in order to achieve an overall impression that is more like an illustration than a normal photo – 44 404 meets Nautilus.

The Result

Even nearly five years later, the picture is still one of my absolute favorites. It was not only the May picture in my 2017 calendar, but was also exhibited for six months in the cafeteria at my workplace in 120×80 cm format – and there are now at least four people who have this picture hanging in their homes as a large-format print. A recognition that makes me very happy!