It’s my pleasure to introduce our newest guest contributor Don Simmons.

Up Close and Personal with Santa Fe Old Number 950

Taken at the BNSF Railway (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) locomotive storage yard in Galveston, Texas.

I am just a retired mathematics teacher who owns a camera. Photography is strictly a hobby for me, and I take pictures when the spirit moves me. I am not that guy who carries his camera everywhere he goes.

My tastes are eclectic, and I enjoy taking pictures of all sorts of things, but I particularly enjoy creating black and white images. Monochrome photography allows me to be less literal and more interpretive.

By definition a black and white photographs are abstractions. The accurate representation of original subject matter ceases to exist and images become more notional and conceptual. This abstraction allows me to capture images without concern for context or verisimilitude.

My gear includes Pentax camera bodies and both current and vintage lenses. To this collection I have added a homemade, microcontroller-based automatic panorama head and a homemade automatic macro focus-stacking rail. My post-processing is primarily with Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop with Lumenzia luminosity masks and Nik plugins.

You can view more of my work – here