I always chuckle when I see comments on a photo that include the word "timeless". Half the time, I think it gets used more because it sounds like a compliment than because the photo truly has no elements that would tell you when it was made. It is very difficult to produce a "timeless photo." Most photos that on-line viewers refer to as "timeless" have obvious elements that would help a discriminating eye establish roughly when they were made. In most cases, the clothing on the crewmembers depicted in the photos is the dead give-away. Other elements in the background can also give it away.
I do a lot of charters every year in which we do our best to create "period" photos....meaning the goal is to make the photos appear to have been made during a specific period in time. Even then, it is very difficult to do. There are but a small handful of places in the country where you can come close. The CT&S, DSNG, Sumpter Valley, Jamestown, EBT, Nevada Northern and the WW&F are good examples. All have native equipment, railroad infrastructure and crewmembers who are willing to groom and dress in a fashion that comes close to the period they are trying to depict. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to completely sanitize the people, the equipment and the scenes.
With regard to the technical processing of photos, grayscale images typically look more like they were taken "back in the day", but the simple, canned, quickie versions from Photoshop often don't have the right look and require some customization. Sepia should ONLY be used when it is period-correct. In addition, needle-sharp photos are also a dead-giveaway. Fred Jukes didn't have a D5 with a 70-200mm f/2.8E VRII. His lenses were probably softer and his shutter speed a lot slower, because his film had a really low ISO.
And one last thing.... You have to decide if you want the photo to be as accurate as possible....or popular. They are two different things. The most popular railroad-related site on the internet is RailPictures.net. With more than 1,500 of my own images posted there, I can tell you that a B&W image of a period-correct scene will very likely get far fewer views than a color image of the same scene. That's because those of us who have a real appreciation for a well-done grayscale image are becoming dinosaurs. The folks who do most of the looking on RP.net are relative kids, who do not remember an age when there were no computers, cell phones or color TV sets.
/Kevin Madore
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2017 08:02AM by KevinM.
