Photography and train travel are twin passions of Richard Jay Solomon, who was given his own 35mm camera for his 10th birthday. In the 1950s and 1960s, Solomon began capturing the last of steam on roads like the Pennsylvania and Norfolk & Western, and he took equal delight in photographing the Northeast’s colorful streetcar, transit, and passenger-train operations.
Influenced by the photographs in Life magazine, Solomon placed heavy emphasis on color photography for his own work. Today, Solomon does research on next-generation electronic imaging devices, and photographs with print and digital cameras.
“Trains got me into photography; trains and photography got me into transportation planning; that got me into computers,” Solomon tells Classic Trains magazine in its Spring 2001 issue. “Computers got me into electronic imaging technology, which pays the bills today; and now I am back to trains.”
See outstanding photographs by Richard Jay Solomon in the Spring 2001 issue of Classic Trains magazine.
