An Evening with the Winners of the 2022 John E. Gruber Creative Photography Awards

Tuesday, September 20, 2022
7:00 p.m. (U.S. Central Time), on Zoom

The 2022 John E. Gruber Creative Photography Awards was one of the most competitive contests we’ve had to date. With over 540 submissions for this year’s theme of Weather Effects, our panel of judges had a difficult job ahead of them to narrow down the entries to six placed photographs. In “An Evening with the Winners…” you’ll hear from the photographers behind the contest’s winning images.

This event is free.

First Prize

Christopher May, black-and-white
Ray Lewis, color

Second Prize

Chris Walters, black-and-white
Eric Williams, color

Third Prize

Dennis Livesey, black-and-white
Robert Arnold, color (unable to attend)

Christopher May, First Prize, black-and-white
Commuters await the arrival of an inbound Metra train at the Elmhurst, Illinois, train station on December 14, 2019.

Ray Lewis, First Prize, color
Two Jordan spreaders and two “snow-fighter” equipped GP38-2s battle to clear the snow off of the Lower Cascade Bridge near Troy, California, on February 11, 2009.

Virtual Launch Party: Preview Continuity & Change, our newest book

Tuesday, August 16, 2022
7:00 p.m. (U.S. Central Time), on Zoom
Registration closes on Monday, August 15 at 4:30 p.m. (CST)

Now Available on YouTube

Join editors Alexander Craghead and Scott Lothes for a virtual launch of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art’s new publication, Continuity & Change: The Lure of North American Railroads. The book explores the photography of contemporary railroading in North America through 230 photographs and 13 essays that dig into topics on railroads and nature, pathways of commerce, passenger railroading, heritage activities, workers, international connections, and how the passage of time marks both railroads and photography.

Craghead and Lothes will take you behind-the-scenes in the journey of both developing the concept of the book and realizing the final production. Continuity & Change: The Lure of North American Railroads was made possible due to the Center’s expansive and talented community of image-makers who answered an open call for submissions to illuminate the relationship of railroads and photography from the nineteenth century to today.

This event is free.

Publication release: September 1, 2022
Pre-order the book here!

Hardcover, 11×11 inches; 384 pages, 230 photographs
$65.00, plus $9 for domestic shipping

UP, Portland, OR, 2011
Kyle Weismann-Yee

UP, Amtrak California Zephyr, Lovelock, NV, 2019
Lou Capwell

Help preserve the legacy of Richard Steinheimer

Preserving photographic materials like the priceless work of Richard Steinheimer requires significant investments of time, resources, and professional expertise. The majority of “Stein’s” photography arrived at the Center for Railroad Photography & Art in mid-June, where it joined our archive of half-a-million railroad images. We invite you to make a special gift today to support our efforts to survey, rehouse, digitize, and share Stein’s work—and all of the materials that make the Center’s growing archive such a special resource.

Join the preservation effort today!

Make your gift here.

Member Exclusive: Behind-the-Scenes with the Steinheimer Collection

Tuesday, August 2, 2022
7:00 p.m. (U.S. Central Time), on Zoom
Registration closes on Monday, August 1 at 4:30 p.m. (CST)

Registration Closed

CRP&A members can request the recording link at info@railphoto-art.org

Member Exclusive: In appreciation for the generous support of our members, join us for a behind-the-scenes look at the Richard Steinheimer Collection and how it was prepared for its trip from Sacramento to the Center for Railroad Photography & Art’s archive in Madison, Wisconsin. Our special guest is Shirley Burman Steinheimer, “Stein’s” widow, partner, soulmate, fellow photographer and keeper of his tremendous visual legacy.

Shirley will join Stein devotees Elrond Lawrence and Ken Rehor for a special Zoom program on Tuesday, August 2, at 7 pm Central (5 pm PT / 6 pm MT / 8 pm ET). They will talk about Stein’s career and his groundbreaking photography, and Shirley will share tales of their adventures together.

The program will also include a member Q&A with Shirley and the team, including archivist Adrienne Evans and associate archivist Heather Sonntag, who will manage the cataloging and digitizing of the Steinheimer Collection. We’ll show pictures of the sorting and packaging of Stein’s beautiful prints and slides inside his office and darkroom, plus an early preview of favorite Steinheimer images both popular and seldom-seen.

This is the first preview of the collection since the Center set the rail photography world buzzing in June with news of the acquisition—which includes 30,000 color slides, thousands of Stein’s majestic black and white prints, black and white negatives circa 1975 and later, plus scans, and more.

This event is open to members of the CRP&A

Join Today! Become a member here

About the Steinheimers

Richard Steinheimer (1929-2011) is considered one of the world’s greatest rail photographers, blazing a trail of creativity across California and the American West for six decades and inspiring generations of photographers to follow. He met Shirley Burman in 1983 and they married in 1984; the two became a formidable team across the railroad industry until he began suffering from the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Shirley will soon release a long-awaited book about railroad women titled Sisters of the Iron Road.

Stein’s thunderous portrait of Southern Pacific Alco PAs, which he called “honorary steam locomotives,” leading the City of San Francisco out of Oakland, California, on July 31, 1966. The extra-long train was due to an airline strike that summer. This beautiful print is one of thousands sorted and packed by the Center team in June in preparation for the entire collection’s trip to our archive in Madison, Wis.

Elrond Lawrence, Adrienne Evans, Shirley Burman, and Ken Rehor (left to right), sorted and packed the Steinheimer Collection in Sacramento, California, in preparation for the materials to move to the Center’s archive in Madison, Wis.

Shirley Burman and Dick Steinheimer at the R&LHS Awards in Los Angeles in 1983.

Behind the Photographs of O. Winston Link – Thomas Garver

Monday, July 18, 2022
7:00 p.m. (U.S. Central Time), on Zoom
Registration closes on Sunday, July 17 at 4:30 p.m. (CST)

Now Available on YouTube

Thomas Garver, the former assistant/agent of Link and the founding curator of the O. Winston Link Museum, will present Behind the Photographs of O. Winston Link. Garver will discuss the life and work of Link as well as his remarkable photographs of the Norfolk & Western Railroad.

Thomas H. Garver is a retired art museum director, writer, and independent curator. In 1957-58, just out of college, he worked for O. Winston Link as a part-time assistant in Link’s New York City studio. Part of his assistantship included three trips, totaling about a month, to Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina to aid Link in the creation of his visionary five-year documentation of the Norfolk and Western Railway at the end of steam power on the line.

Tom Garver assisted Winston Link in the field, and subsequently contributed a chapter to Link’s first book, Steam, Steel & Stars, published in 1987. Tom was the sole author of the text for the second book of Link’s railroad photos, The Last Steam Railroad in America, published in 1995. In 1994, Garver became Link’s business agent, and following Link’s death in 2001, Garver served as organizing curator of the O. Winston Link Museum, located in the former N&W passenger station in Roanoke, Virginia. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

This event is free.

Train #2 arrives at the Waynesboro Station, Waynesboro, Virgnia, April 14, 1955. Courtesy of the O. Winston Link Museum.