P57443 - GWR Castle Class no. 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, Evesham - Trains in the Landscape

This was the first steam railtour through I'd photographed in some years, and the first I'd managed to do since the redoubling work in 2011.  Having come to the conclusion that the footbridge at Offenham was no longer really suited to photographing trains heading west, I decided to try a location to the west of the town, on a bridleway between Hampton and Charlton.  For this exercise I deployed a tripod (bear in mind I'd carried this two or three miles from my home).

The result was not as good as I'd hoped for.  The lighting is great (the train went through as the sun was setting), but the background clutter spoils what might have been a great photograph.  In my defence, this was not the shot I'd originally conceived; I had started out with the camera pointed more to the left of this shot, but shortly before the train was scheduled to arrive, a pickup truck parked up in front of the line right in the centre of my shot, and I ended up recomposing further to the right.  Unfortunately this brought the marina (and associated clutter) in the background more into prominence, and I then had an issue with a motorcycle in front of the train, but I was able to remove this.