02/18/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image is an oldie but a goodie.  I took this photo from down in the canyon by the Animas River looking up to the High Line of the Durango and Silverton Railroad as a train was heading back to Durango.  My favorite photographer, William Henry Jackson, photographed the D&SRR from a similar spot back in the early 1900s.  

A link to one of WHJ's D&SRR images.  D&SRR Animas Canyon

4/2/23

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image is another nice ride to take in Colorado.  It is in Durango and called the Durango & Silverton.  The scenery on this ride is just gorgeous, most of it takes place alongside the Animas River.  My favorite photographer had photographed this railroad from the spot I was in.  This is my attempt to emulate the style of his photograph.  His photograph is below mine.

Photo by William Henry Jackson

5/3/20

It's Steamy Sunday once again.  I am having fun with playing with old photos and trying new things.  Here is another oldie from the Durango & Silverton Railway in Colorado from my first visit there.  I enhanced the out of frame look a bit more with some B&W work as well.

4/26/20

With the world the way it is these days I may not get much opportunity to photograph steam trains this year except my garden railway.  I was thinking of ways to be inspired and I saw images done in this type of "Pop Out" or "Out of Frame" style and decided to try my own.  I liked the result and decided to share it.  This is an older image from Durango & Silverton in Colorado that I use on my computer as one of my rotating desktop images that i thought lent itself very well to the technique.

5/13/18

My image today goes back to Silverton Colorado and my trip on the Durango & Silverton Railway.  I took this from the train I was riding on just before we pulled out to head back to Durango.  The locomotive is from the last train of the day and one of it's crew was posing for someone with a huge smile on his face.  Great people running the railroad and beautiful scenery so a great ride to take if you ever get the chance.

5/6/18

My image today goes back to last summer and my trip to Colorado and the Durango & Silverton Railway.  The train was at Silverton waiting for passengers to re-board.  You can get off and visit the town but I chose to watch and photograph the trains coming and going.

3/25/18

Posting an image today with two of my favorite things to photograph, trains and waterfalls.  I was photographing the train I rode to Silverton moving around on the Wye to get ready to head back to Durango.  I caught this image of it with two waterfalls behind it placed on each side of the sand dome, the one closest to the stack.  These waterfalls were caused by snow melt and it was interesting to see snow in July.

3/18/18

Posting a bit late today.  This was taken as I was riding the train and heading to Silverton on the Durango & Silverton Railway.  As we crossed this bridge the engineer blew down the boiler.  The boiler gets blown down to clear out scale and debris to get it to operate more efficiently.  You have to do it in short bursts when running like this because it uses up a bunch of water and you don't want the level to get too low.  In these short bursts over a bridge like this, it puts on a show for the people riding because the steam burst looks fairly impressive.

3/4/18

Well I am back to color images now and this one is from this past summer in Colorado.  We were back at Durango after our ride to Silverton and back.  They were moving the locomotive off the turntable and into the Roundhouse for routine maintenance to get it ready for another day's work in the morning.

2/25/18

I was invited to a Black and White Photography Challenge over on Google + so because my roots in photography are in B&W I decided to take it on.  I used to do my own film and picture processing in that medium.  Things are quite a bit different today with the abilities with digital.  Now it's more about the subject.  I think this one lends itself well to a monochrome look.  This is our train on the High Line of the Durango & Silverton Railway as we headed up to Silverton that I shot from the train.  I like to sit in a rear car for shots like these.

1/21/18

This image was taken while I was riding the train as we headed around a curve of the Animas River headed to Silverton, Colorado.  This is the Durango & Silverton Railway which follows the river most of the trip.  The water looks so fresh and clear and is very popular for Kayaking.

1/7/18

It's the first Steamy Sunday for the new year so I am sharing a highlight of the trip this past year to the Durango & Silverton Railway in Colorado.  I took this shot from the train as we were moving along the famous High Line on the way to Silverton.  At this point the train is only moving along at 5 mph due to the steep drop off to the Animas River below.  The rock cut is quite beautiful in this area with all the colors. 

12/31/17

Well, it's New Years Eve and for my last photo of the year and because Sundays are for steamy things, here is a photo from this summer and a MUCH warmer day at the Durango and Silverton Railway in Colorado. This is a shot of the train before ours departing the Durango station.  So goodbye to 2017 and may 2018 be better.

12/18/17

This is an image I shot the next day after the image I shared yesterday.  I was riding the Durango & Silverton and we were on the way to Silverton.  This is a bit of the beautiful scenery you see along the way.  If you look close you can see a small waterfall that resulted from snow melt from the rocky peaks.  Some of these still had snow on them even in July.

12/17/17

My image today goes back to the Durango & Silverton Railway once again.  I took this image the day I was down in the canyon by the Las Animas River trying to get photos in the style of William Henry Jackson.  This is the locomotive that I rode behind the next day as it made it's way along the Hi Line.  At this point it is only moving along at 5 miles per hour due to the steep drop off.  This image shows the red granite in the hills here very well on the left.  

12/10/17

My image today goes back to my trip to the Durango & Silverton Railway this past July.  This is back at the Durango station and our locomotive, 481, was about to set the passenger cars on their track for the next days service and then head to the turntable to be moved into the roundhouse for it's cleaning and servicing for the next day.

11/27/17

Today's image is really about the scenery but it does have the added bonus of a steam train in it as well.  I was capturing the scenery in Silverton, Colorado while shooting the trains coming into town.  The locomotive of this train was clearing out it's cylinder as I took this image of one of the mountains in the area that still had some snow on it in July.  Silverton is a beautiful area but I think it really only exists these days due to the tourist train.  

11/12/17

So today I am sharing an image of two of the things I love to photograph in one shot.  I shared one from a different angle a while back.  This is the last train of the day arriving in Silverton, Colorado to let it's passengers off to walk around the town for a couple of hours like I was doing.  You can see in the background a couple of waterfalls that were being created by the snow melt that was still going on in July in the mountains.

11/5/17

Did you remember to set your clock back 1 hour if you are in the States?  😉  My image today was taken after I road the Durango and Silverton train.  We had just got back to Durango and I was walking around and going to the museum when the last train of the day pulled in.  They were checking things out before they took the cars to park for the night and locomotive to the Roundhouse.

10/29/17

This is an image from a much warmer day back in July taken during my trip to the Durango & Silverton Railway.  This is our locomotive and train sitting in Silverton waiting for passengers to re-board for the trip back to Durango.  Silverton is a quaint little town that basically only still exists due to the railroad and tourists.  It was once a mining town.