... blog post:
Sometimes the things you get a chance to photograph can seem a bit unreal or maybe surreal or perhaps wraithlike, as in these trains wrapped in their own steam and smoke.
I like the weird, unearthly feel this gives to the pictures. Everything feels shrouded in mystery, disappearing into the gloom.
People have a feeling of smokey unreality too, half hidden as if enveloped within a smog of yesteryear.
Steam shrouds footplates veiling details, creating a haze of indistinctness, heightening the sense of the illusory.
Forms emerge half muted in the steam and smoke giving these huge monsters a nebulous almost ethereal air.
Disembodied faces peer out from the mist, the demigods who drive these fire breathing monsters; coal and water, smoke and steam.
Then again it can be just the 10:30 from Alresford to Alton working hard as it departs the station, though it's pretty spectacular on a bright, frosty morning. The sights, sounds and smells of heritage steam are something to be savoured close up and in person, for the total immersive experience. Oh, and bring your camera.