Shooting the shoot...

T he inspiration for this entire project came from lots of different sources, but RAIL’s Managing Editor Nigel Harris and I knew from the beginning that great photography was at the heart of it. We wanted to bring together a diverse range of women from the industry and in one photograph capture the breadth of opportunity the railway offers.

So we set about arranging a photoshoot to bring our 18 women together… which was not an easy task! We wanted the location to be somewhere that was important in railway history, and felt that the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel was the perfect location.

When the hotel opened as the Midland Grand Hotel in 1876, it was described as innovative, and ahead of its time. Having undergone a transformative restoration that was completed in 2011, it is an iconic example of innovation and transformation on the railway, just like our ‘New Transformers’.

We chose the high-Victorian Gothic Grand Staircase at the hotel as the location for our group photographs and I’m sure we don’t need to explain why! But arranging a date for 18 women, some of whom frequently work overseas, some with complex shift patterns and many not based in London, was challenging. You will notice that three of our women were not able to be at the photoshoot (Kendra Ayling, Laura Wright and Lucy Prior), all of whom were busy with their international day-jobs at the time.

The other 15 were photographed in their work gear and then in what we described as ‘something that makes you feel like you’, to show the person behind the role and to express their individuality.

We also set up a photograph that required some Photoshop wizardry by RAIL’s Art Editor Charles Wrigley afterwards. If you open the covers of your supplement out and lay it flat, you will notice that the same individuals appear on both sides of the staircase, just in different outfits (see photograph, top right).

Regular RAIL photographer Jack Boskett took all of the amazing photographs in this supplement, with just a few exceptions… ‘shooting the shoot’ behind the scenes was Nigel, who captured some of the more candid moments that afternoon, which we thought you might like to share in as part of this project’s story… n

NIGEL HARRIS. It took a lot of careful positioning and lighting to achieve the right effect on the staircase. We had a small panic to begin with trying to find power sockets for the lighting, and became the source of much interest for guests and visitors to the hotel.

Once all the photographs had been taken for the supplement, Network Rail Graduate Mavish Mehmood asked if she could have her photo taken on the staircase… and she started a bit of a trend, that was followed by…

London Overground’s Temi Faniyi…

Network Rail’s Natalie Whitehead…