Bill Chapman was born in Nottingham, England and until the late
1960s lived in the East Midlands. He commenced work on the railway 'by
accident' in 1964, thinking that it was just going to be a temporary summer
job in between school and Technical College. Having started work at Toton
moves soon came to various points 'up the valley' - the Erewash Valley
that is - Sandiacre, Stanton Gate, Ilkeston, and then back to Long Eaton.
The call came to go to Crewe in 1969, and it was in Cheshire that he put
down roots.
'Retirement'
from the railway industry in 1994 proved to be temporary, a second railway
career started after a few years elsewhere!
The camera went most places. There was a fascination not simply
with the trains and locomotives, but mainly with the whole experience of
travelling, being able to actually get to see places that he'd only ever
heard about or seen accounts of in books and magazines. The romance
of travel in fact, whether it be to Bournemouth or Ballymena, Crewe or
Koblenz. He took pictures of whatever there was to see. Steam, DMUs, buildings,
people and places, it made no difference, there was no distinction, it
was all interesting, and as it was to sometimes unexpectedly turn out,
important.
After the mid '90s, he virtually ceased to take views of railway
related subjects and began to explore the broader church of photography,
studying part time at South Cheshire College and later gaining the Licentiateship
of the Royal Photographic Society. The advent of affordable digital
imaging led him back to the 'previous photographic life' and his Railway
Photographs of the 1960s. Most of these had been originated on colour reversal
material and almost all were decaying at an alarming rate. Here was salvation!
Original cameras used were very simple compared to today's equipment.
A Halina Super 35X lasted 18 months from 1964 until it fell apart from
over usage, and was quickly succeeded by a Praktica Nova, built like a
tank and just as robust if rather unsophisticated. This went absolutely
everywhere until 1970 when it too died of old age and overwork. Then there
was a Prakticamat, and sometimes a Yashica 44LM TLR (which would be rather
collectable today). Original film was usually Ektachrome X (64 ISO), High
Speed Ektachrome (160 ISO) and the odd roll of Kodachrome II (25 ISO).
Digitising is done with a Nikon Coolscan III followed by a good, hearty
mangling through Photoshop 5.0 to correct 30 - 35 years of abuse, neglect
and decay.
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