David Hill
This month’s 10 Pictures comes from Yorkshirebased enthusiast and photographer David Hill. David has lived in Leeds all his life and has been interested in railways since a young age. His earliest recollections are of standing on Headingley station during the summer watching the steam locomotives working the ‘Scarborough Spa Express’ charters when they used to do the Harrogate Loop, before heading to Scarborough when he was about six years old during the 1980s. He says he has seen photographs of him in his pushchair watching the trains, so he was most definitely introduced to railways from an early age.
Having never worked on the railways, David has extensively travelled on the network, colouring in his Bakers Rail Atlas and then progressing onto Quail on service trains and numerous charters, both diesel and steam-hauled over the years, including travelling on the Railway Touring Company’s epic ‘Great Britain’ tours on six occasions, so more often he has travelled on the rails rather than standing at the lineside behind the lens.
David has always been interested in taking photographs, something he was encouraged to do by his dad and grandad. David’s grandad achieved associate status at the Royal Photographic Society for his print and audio visual talents and it was his grandad who gave him his first proper camera – a Pentax ME Super film camera that David would often use when out and about with his dad on trips. David continued to use the Pentax ME Super camera until he converted to digital photography, starting with a Nikon D70 in 2004 and then progressing to a Nikon D5300, which he still uses to the present day.
The move to digital came about as David was exploring the country on all-line rovers and he was trying to capture the changing scene of the railways when locomotive-hauled trains and slam door units were being phased out. He realised it was an expensive business with film and processing costs, and that digital was the way forward. He’s never looked back since.
These are David Hill’s 10 Pictures.