Parson Street 18.6.2014

FACEBOOK - RAILS AROUND BRISTOL AND BATH

I am trying to get out at least once a week to take railway photographs. Today was just a quick trip to Parson Street, in South Bristol. Until Whitchurch reopens on the Radstock line it's my closest station. We do use it to travel to places like Weston and Bath.

I was there for just about an hour today but there was plenty of activity. The station itself is a pretty soulless place at the moment, but no doubt it will be spruced up when the Portishead trains start running again in 2019!

Trains are basically Weston and Taunton locals plus a few non-stopping trains to Exeter and beyond. There is freight off the Portishead branch but I wasn't there at the right time today.

Expect more from this location over the coming years!

1960s!

new camera

 

(All Bristol Parson Street 26.10.2013 copyright Rail Thing)

 

I treated myself to a new camera the other day and yesterday was the first chance I got to use it on the rails. My stepdaughter lives a minute away from Parson Street so I spent half an hour on the station. I've been here before and found it quite a hard place to photograph, the location is on a curve so there's no a lot of scope to snap the trains, and the bottom half of the platforms is out of bounds and overgrown. Previous shots just haven't worked for me.

 

The new camera is a Fujifilm Finepix HS50, a bridge camera, and it has an brilliant 42x manual telephoto lens. So I tried something different - actually using the telephoto to follow the trains in. This gave me far more scope to capture the trains and I'm quite pleased with the results.

 

My wife's keen for me to take up photography full time, which would be a great idea, but having run businesses for years I know just how difficult it can be to make a living from anything, let alone from something you love doing! We'll see ...