Age of Steam 2020 Review
In 2019, Lerro Photography started discussions with the Age of Steam Roundhouse in Ohio on doing a photo shoot and had tentatively planned on running a public shoot in mid-2020. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to those plans. After some discussion during the summer of 2020, it was decided to do a smaller scale “test shoot” to see how a socially distanced photo shoot could work inside the roundhouse.
For the photo shoot, we had to acquire two large fog machines because we cannot use our usual smoke bombs inside the museum. The fog machines worked much better than we had anticipated. Within 20 minutes of running, the entire roundhouse had the appearance of an in-service smoky roundhouse atmosphere, which helped set the mood for the photo shoot.
The test photo shoot was comprised of two parts: a three-hour morning session and a three-hour evening session.
In the morning, our first shots were of light beams silhouetting Morehead & North Fork 0-6-0 #12 against a large bay of windows. There was also a secondary shot of a reenactor at a dispatch desk. For the next shot, we had Grand Trunk Western 4-8-4 #6325 pulled out onto the turntable. The final shots of the morning were with multiple locomotives in the roundhouse as well as with “Felix,” the roundhouse cat.
During our midday break, we visited the facility that is building the PRR T1 4-4-4-4 #5550. It is very exciting to see the T1 pieces coming together and starting to look like a locomotive. After finishing the tour, we left feeling like there really is a good chance that the T1 will become a reality.
Back at the Age of Steam Roundhouse in the afternoon, we got some great shots of the last beams of light entering the roundhouse on the west side. Once the sun set, we had the roundhouse lights turned on and used our battery LED lights as fill in light where needed. The atmosphere from the fog machines really became apparent when perfect beams of light became visible coming from the locomotive headlights and ceiling lights. Combining this with reenactors posing around the locomotives in various scenes, one would think we were in a real active locomotive roundhouse.
The staff at the Age of Steam Roundhouse were an amazing group to work with and we are really looking forward to working with them on future photo shoots and projects. Keep an eye out for announcements on future photo shoots at the Age of Steam Roundhouse!
