Good urban photography is as much about the past as the present—or, better, intersection of the two. For that quality, self-titled “Railway History Slowly Rotting Away” takes the Day. Diego Torres Sylvester explains: “An old British Armstrong-Whitworth Diesel-Electric train, named ‘Estrella’ by São Paulo Railway company, rotting in a rail yard in Paranapiacaba, Brazil”. The seemingly simple photo carries profound meaning in context, for which I wish he would give even more.
Diego is more an urban shooter of things, for a reason. “I don’t like to take pictures of people, mostly because I don’t know how to do it well. That’s why almost all my pictures are ‘people-less'”, he says. Hey, that’s okay. He does just fine finding interesting artifacts across the urban landscape.
“I prefer portability over picture quality, that’s why I currently use a Panasonic DMC FZ-35 and my Nokia Lumia 920 cameraphone instead of a dSLR as they fit my current needs very well”, he says about his style. Mmmm, IQ looks damn good to my eyes. He used the Panny to shoot our selection, on Sept. 23, 2013. Vitals: f/3.7, ISO 80, 1/100 sec, 27.5mm. Diego, who joined Flickr in March 2005, is from Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he still lives.
Photo Credit: Diego Torres Silvestre