Colin Garratt (1940–2018)

Another sumptuous book of photographs from Colin Garratt, showing the end of steam around the world. Photographs date from the late 1960s to the first decade of the 21st century, and none of the engines illustrated were in museums or on heritage lines at the time they were photographed; rather, they were doing the jobs for which they were designed and built, sometimes as far back as the 1870s. Garratt also succeeds like few other railway photographers in capturing the scenes, atmosphere, people and surroundings of the steam engine and the steam railway. Many should take a lesson from him.

But... but... but... once again, here is a book which i was happy to acquire at a reduced price, but which if I'd paid full price for I would be writing a very stiff note to the publishers about. And as, in this case, the book is published by Garratt's own agency, Milepost 92-and-a-half, that note would be very pointed indeed. Because the reproduction of the pictures is truly appalling. Many pictures have been subjected to High Dynamic Range (HDR) processing, boosting the contrast between light and dark tones to almost polychromatic levels. Colours are often garish and harsh, and look unrealistic. And given that many of these pictures were taken on slide film rather than via digital image capture, this can only be part of the production process. A number of photographs show sharpening artefacts which points to incompetent Photoshop work, and which would not, again, have been there on the original slide. Moreover, many of the pictures are unacceptably low-resolution. Some of these pictures have appeared before, and I have been able to make direct comparisons; and the reproduction in the 1960s and 1970s was far more naturalistic.

The printer, or the packaging house, or a designer somewhere has made this book into a travesty of Colin Garratt's ability, and if I were the publisher, I would be demanding that these books should be pulped and redone.The reproduction is truly that bad.

The keen photographer will be able to learn lessons from this book; how to photograph trains and how not to allow your work to be violated for the sake of getting into print.… (more)