Customer Reviews

Desert Railroading

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mr. Schmollinger has done it again with a spectacular collection of photos from both himself and other well-known rail photographers. In addition to the unbelievable (and I'm not exaggerating) photos, this book contains an extensive amount of historical information regarding the original surveys conducted by the explorers who were among the first white men to see much of the territory that this volume covers. There is also sort of a running geology lesson which explains the what and why of the many incredible backdrops that the trains are placed against. The variety of weather conditions and the geographic uniqueness of the area covered is demonstrated through a number of stunning night shots, sunset, and glint shots as well as some whopping telephotos that all combine to give a refreshing look at areas that are over-covered in the fan magazines. Stunning and worth the price.

This is the third book I bought with photo's from Steve Schmollinger. I think he is one of the greatest US train photographers. Unfortuanatly some photo's in his last book are made bigger then in previous books and (in my opinion) that did not made the book better. The disadvantage is that the grain is more visable (normally with such big photo's you take more distance, but in the book the distance to your eyes remains the same as for the smaller pictures) and the picture is cut by the gutter of the book. However this book is worth the money, because the pictures are very good. I hope that Steve will make more nice books in the future, but will use the layout as used in his first book.

The only thing that would have improved this book would have been a commitment from the publisher not to run photos across the book's gutter. While two-page photos can be aligned so that the gutter cuts through nothing meaningful in the picture, a few times in this book the gutter cuts the lead locomotive in half.

Otherwise, the imagery is interesting, the text and captions are well-written and informative.