DELTIC and D200, Barrow Hill, October 2003
The East Midlands Railway Photographic Society
Photo Charters
In order to raise money for preserved railways and preservation societies, and to give it's members unique photo opportunities, the EMRPS stages regular photo charters at a number of preserved railways around the country. The concept of these events is to hire a railway and pose trains for the benefit of the paying photographers. This can involve taking a train out on a preserved line with the participants riding on board the train, and then stopping at key locations where everyone de-trains and take photographs, or it can involve posing trains at night and floodlighting them.
The EMRPS does not make any money from these events, and all of the money goes to the preserved railways / preservation societies involved. Despite common opinion, our photo charters are not a 'closed shop' and anyone is welcome provided they book and pay in advance. However, the number of photographers that we can accommodate on photo charters is always severely limited, and we sell places on a first come first served basis. This can make our charters appear to be only open to members because we always honour our member's commitment by offering charters to members first before offering places to non members. In a lot of cases, charters actually fully book with EMRPS members and don't actually get offered to non-members. So, if you are not a member of the EMRPS and are seriously interested in attending our photo charters, then please visit the 'join the EMRPS' page for details of how to join us. Once you are a member, you will be invited to join our yahoo group on which we send out charter details. This yahoo group ensures that all members receive details at the same time via email, and everyone then has equal opportunity to book themselves a place. We don't tend to widely advertise our charters due to the risk of gatecrashers.
The first EMRPS photo charter took place on the 19th January 2001. This was a night shoot that was organised by Jason Cross to 'test the water' to see if photo charters with diesel traction could be viable. That first event was a great success, and since then we have organised daytime and night time shoots at various railways throughout the country. Our efforts have so far managed to raise £27,000 for the preservation movement, and some of this cash has been used to pay for repaints, haulage costs for visiting locomotives and pay towards various other restoration projects. We have also given participants unique photo opportunities such as 31407's last photo call prior to scrapping, an afternoon photographing class 20's in Hope Cement Works, the prototype DELTIC alongside D200 and many more. The EMRPS has become a specialist in lighting night shoots where we aim to achieve lighting that is as even as possible. The task of lighting our night shoots is undertaken by a dedicated team of lighting specialists who have developed their lighting skills over the course of many night shoots. This same team also assist Jason Cross behind the scenes in the organisation and the running of photo charters.
A few example photos from previous photo charters are shown below:
DELTIC and D200, Barrow Hill, October 2003
37240, Llangollen Railway, January 2007
D306, Nene Valley Railway, February 2006
20168, Hope Cement Works, September 2005
37901, Llangollen Railway, June 2006
40135, 56006, 46035 and 20096, Barrow Hill,
October 2002
D1705, Great Central Railway, March 2007
37219, Gloucestershire & Warwickshire
Railway, May 2007