Railroad Heritage, Spring 2017: Normandin, Heckman, Award Winners

Artist Adam Normandin, a featured presenter at Conversations 2017, is the subject of a profile by David C. Lester. We offer a glimpse of the work of Canadian Pacific photographer Joseph William Heckman, who worked for the railway’s engineering department from 1898 to 1915. A new book by Ralph Beaumont covers Heckman’s photography extensively, and won it the Canadian Railway Historical Association’s annual book award last year. Winners of the 2016 John E. Gruber Creative Photography Awards Program are also presented, featuring the top work in two different categories: most evocative images of all-time and recent photographs made with mobile devices. Archives manager Jordan Radke shares highlights of recent collections acquisitions and processing work in his regular “Out of the Archives” column. We also present our 2016 Honor Roll of donors and an interview with Bon French, who chairs our board and has just made an extraordinarily generous and ambitious matching grant. His photograph of a Chicago and North Western empty coal train at Shawnee Junction, Wyoming, under a July 1994 sunset appears on the cover.

$7.95, 48 pages, color and b/w

Railroad Heritage 48, Spring 2017

The Railroad and The Art of Place

The Railroad and the Art of Place is a 152-page, 11 x 11-inch hardbound book printed in lush duotone that features photographs made by David Kahler, FAIA, with design and editing by Jeff Brouws and Wendy Burton. In the late 1980s, Kahler was deeply inspired by seeing an exhibition of O. Winston Link photographs. He soon began making annual trips to the West Virginia and eastern Kentucky coalfields, destinations that strongly resonated with his own aesthetic of “place.” Armed with a used Leica M6 and gritty Tri-X film, he and his wife made six week-long trips in the dead of winter to photograph trains along the Pocahontas Division of the Norfolk Southern Railway. Nearly one hundred images edited from this body of work form the core of The Railroad and the Art of Place, along with a selection of earlier Pennsylvania Railroad steam-era photographs that reflect Kahler’s interest in the railroad landscape from an early age. The volume also contains three essays (by Kahler, Scott Lothes, and Jeff Brouws) discussing the personal motivations, historical context, and aesthetic development behind the photography. With funding for printing provided by the Kahler Family Charitable Fund, all sales will go to support the Center’s work. Limited edition of 1,000.

$60 plus $7 for domestic shipping, hardcover, 11×11 inches, 152 pages, duotone

The Railroad and the Art of Place, by David Kahler

International shipping is available; please inquire by email at info [at] railphoto-art.org

Worldwide Winners of the 2016 Awards Program

Simon Jowett of the United Kingdom (above) and Olaf Haensch of Germany and have won first prize in the 2016 John E. Gruber Creative Photography Awards Program, in the “mobile device” and “most evocative” categories, respectively. Haensch won previously in 2008 and took second in 2009; Jowett is a first-time entrant. Second prizes went to Slovenia’s Miško Kranjec—another past winner—for “evocative,” and first-time entrant Ryder Bechtold of Denver, Colorado, for “mobile.” Charles McCreary of Minnesota and Jeremy J. Schrader of Illinois received the third prize awards, rounding out the top winners. Additionally, the judges selected a total of thirty-one images in their two “Also Liked” categories. We will soon add additional submissions for public viewing in a first-time web gallery.

Each of the three judges remarked that this year’s field was especially competitive, and that picking the winners was extremely difficult. The 331 entries came from 141 photographers living in more than thirty different states and ten countries—the second-most submissions all-time in a CRPA contest. After reviewing the images on their own, the judges spent more than four hours discussing and debating their final decisions. All of us at the Center extend our congratulations to the winners, thank the judges for their time and efforts, and thank everyone who submitted. Your work inspires us, and we can hardly wait to see what you will do next.

See all of the winners and read the judges’ commentary on the 2016 Awards page.

First Place: Simon Jowett

First Place: Olaf Haensch

Railroad Heritage, Winter 2017: J.B. Jackson, Fogg on the P&LE, Gotthard Posters

You may not have heard of J.B. Jackson, but his impact on railroad photography has been profound. In the Winter 2017 issue of Railroad Heritage®, Alexander Benjamin Craghead takes an in-depth look at Jackson, his path-breaking work in geography and landscape studies, and his influence on how we view railroads. That includes the work of Jeff Brouws, noted author, photographer, and Center board member, whose view of the ex-Wabash coaling tower in Decatur, Illinois, appears on the cover. Howard Fogg’s paintings of the Pittsburg & Lake Erie Railroad anchor the issue’s other feature article, strikingly set against contemporary photographs of the same scenes by author Jerry W. Jordak. You can read all about our first regional conference, Conversations Northeast, in a review by Steve Barry, editor of Railfan & Railroad magazine. Jordan Radke, archives manager, returns for his regular Out of the Archives column, this time delving into copyright and other matters of intellectual property. With Switzerland’s new Gotthard Base Tunnel coming into regular operation in December 2016, Arjan den Boer’s regular column on European rail travel posters looks back at some of the advertising of the original Gotthard Railway. John Gruber offers a tribute to Hal Lewis, who died in 2016 and whose collection resides in the Center’s archive. You can also read a book review, letters from our readers, and an introduction of Peter Mosse, our newest board member.

Sold out, 48 pages, color and b/w

Railroad Heritage 47, Winter 2017