Although his career was in Architecture, Mike Spencer has been taking photos for most of his life. He has been twice the winner of British Steam Photographer of the Year; Surf Photographer of the Year, promoted by Carve Surfing Magazine; Ocean Fine Art Photographer of the Year, a global competition by Oceanographic Magazine; Photo of the Week, featured in the Sunday Times Travel Magazine. His photographs have been on covers of Railway Magazine, Steam Railway, The Railway World Annual, plus many published images in magazines and a recent double-spread in Rail Express. He has featured photos in a number of books, plus Signalboxes and Semaphores, his own book published in connection with the local Museums Service, to document the end of manual signalling in Leicester.

For the future, Mike Spencer will have a dedicated online photo store on his website, in conjunction with a lab for quality prints. This year, he is also intending to produce his first calendar. „Once I have an idea, I will do whatever it takes to crack the photo – even if that means driving through the night for miles to arrive at a location for the golden light that might make the image stand out!”

What is a perfect photo?

Everybody has a different idea of what makes for the perfect photo. This can be subjective based upon emotions, the captured moment, or a well crafted and thought out image that illustrates the scene or subject pretty much as well as it could be.

In railway photography, it may be a perfectly focused and lit shot of a scene or locomotive, where the photographer has the Sun shining over their shoulder illuminating everything in the frame. To me, however, I rarely take such a photo because it’s not showing me anything I have not seen before. Well, maybe it is a different locomotive, but the basic concept is similar.

Taking nothing away from this approach, everyone has their own motivation to point a camera at a subject and press the shutter. My own motivation has always been to produce an image that has the potential to appeal to a wider audience. The idea that it may get a ‘wow’ from the viewer as they see it and maybe prompt a bit of interest in my work.

Photography is mostly about ‘light’ and we can interpret what is available to suit our mood or vision. Usually there are a number of factors to consider, some of which are variable and out of our control, when planning a photo. Railways usually run to a timetable, so that should take care of at least one variable – we know roughly when a train will appear!

With my photography, I scout locations and check Google Maps for viewpoints once I have an idea in mind. I then make notes and mark a calendar, or mental note, of when there might be a chance of an idea working. As you can imagine, I have accumulated quite a list, but this is slightly trimmed by my preference for ‘golden hour’ light at the beginning and end of the day. I especially look for morning locations and workings as I do like a bit of mist!

The example I have attached may seem like a fairly simple shot. However, if I told you it took about 10 years to capture the photograph I had in my mind’s eye, then you can see that persistence and patience is required!

I had noticed the light shining down the tracks one day on this bit of straight railway and that prompted some research. It turned out that the Sun did set in alignment on 2 occasions each year, for about 3 days each time. This sort of information can be found on Apps and a couple of websites that I know of, and so the seed was planted!

I then needed the weather and a train working to fit. It turned out there were a couple of workings that might work, but wow, did I have some disappointments! Some days I would think it was dead certain that everything would work, then low cloud on the horizon killed the Sun! I remember another time when there was an unscheduled freight working coming and, at the last minute, fog appeared and once again concealed the setting Sun! Trains have also not appeared, being late, early, or cancelled, as the Sun was in position and it passed the perfect position with no train! So as you can see it was quite a challenge. One thing I learn was how rapid the Sun moves across the frame when you least want it to!

By no means do I consider this a ‘perfect photo’, but it is probably the best I can hope for and as near to my mind’s eye vision as can be, considering the variables at play. I hope this is a small insight into how this photo was created and may inspire the reader to seek out their own visions, whatever they may be, and that patience and persistence may be required.