Platform conversation at Wolsztyn, Poland, on February 4, 2011.
Judge’s Comment:
This one is so much like a setting Dick would have loved with lots of railroad workers. The one on the right is smiling at the visitor carrying a yellow bag with a Scotty dog picuture on it and a briefcase. I can almost imagine the interaction between the gentleman and the crew. The billowing steam encases the men and makes them show up. If the steam wasn’t there, the men would have blended into the side of the locomotive and not have the impact that it does here.
About the Photographer:
Robert Day was born in 1957, the son of a railwayman. He trained as a librarian, but then worked in a number of positions in industry and the UK Civil Service until 2010, when he decided that if he didn’t try making a living from photography now, he never would. A year later, with no work coming in, he went back onto the job market and is currently working in freight auditing, where his knowledge of railways is very useful!
Day started taking photographs seriously in 1971, when his father decided that it was time to start recording the changing British railway scene before the “traditional” railway was swept away by modernisation or closure. Robert is currently working on a book of his UK railway architecture photographs taken at that time, for publication in 2013. He also produced his first photobook last year, The Soul of the Machine: 2011. Robert was the first ever winner of the International Labour Photographer of the Year competition in 2008, and his work has also been included in the UK Rail Photo Library, part of the agency Milepost 92½, founded by the British railway photographer Colin Garratt.
Return to: Main Awards Page