Richard Steinheimer
Richard Steinheimer (born August 23, 1929 in Chicago , Illinois , † May 4, 2011 in Sacramento , California ) was an American railroad photographer and author. He is often referred to as the Ansel Adams of railroad photography .
Life
After his parents divorced, he moved to Phoenix, Arizona with his mother in 1935 . In 1939 the family moved to Glendale, California . In 1945 he started taking photos with a Kodak Baby Brownie . From the beginning he concentrated on mainly on railway recordings. From 1947 he used a speed graphic camera.
From 1949 he studied at San Francisco College, among others with Joe Rosenthal and at San José State University . In 1950 he worked for Glendale News as a press photographer. He did his military service in the US Navy from 1951 to 1953 as a photojournalist. Then he continued his work as a train photographer. He mainly focused on the western United States.
From 1956 to 1962 he worked as a photojournalist for the Marin Independent Journal, after which he worked as a freelancer. In 1963 his first book was published by Kalmbach Publishing . Its first exhibition took place in 1965 in Grand Central Terminal in New York. Between 1948 and 2011, over 400 of his photos appeared in the publisher's Trains magazine . He also works as a photographer for space companies in Silicon Valley.
In 1983 he received the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society's Senior Achievement Award in Photography .
He was married to the photographer and journalist Shirley Burman since 1984 . In 2000 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's . In 2007 he suffered a stroke.
Works
- 1963: Backwoods railroads of the West; a portfolio.
- 1963: Photos for "Central Pacific & the Southern Pacific Railroads" by Lucius Beebe
- 1965: Western trains
- 1980: Electric way across the mountains: stories of the milwaukee road electrification
- 1982: together with Donald Sims: Growing up with trains: a southern California album
- 1983: together with Ted Benson: Growing up with trains II: a northern California album
- 1989: together with Dick Dorn: Diesels over Donner: mountain soul of the Southern Pacific
- 1999: Done honest & true: Richard Steinheimer's half century of rail photography
- 2004: Passion for trains: the railroad photography of Richard Steinheimer
Web links
- Photos by Richard Steinheimer on Railroadheritage.org
- Photos by Richard Steinheimer in the Robert Mann Gallery
- Obituary at Trains.com
- Obituary in the Los Angeles Times
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Steinheimer, Richard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American railroad photographer and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 23, 1929 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chicago , Illinois |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 4, 2011 |
| Place of death | Sacramento , California |