Framing the United States through a train window

Written by on September 26, 2024


Katie Edwards A triptych of images taken from a train window. Left to right: An alley in Chicago, school buses in front of mountains and a beam pump extracting oil from an inland well.Katie Edwards

Travelling nearly 10,000 miles by train, British photographer Katie Edwards crossed the United States capturing the landscape through a window.

The journey, from New York to San Francisco, via Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle, resulted in 20,000 photographs taken during 180 hours on the rails.

“I had assumed that the world was going to be full of exquisite moments and my job was simply to surrender to the train, its speed, direction and frame,” Edwards says.

But the reality saw dirty train windows and reflections that obscured the views.

Katie Edwards Bridge on the Hudson River Katie Edwards

Taking the photographs in a vestibule at the end of a carriage, Edwards taped a large bag to the opposite window to reduce the glare – though the train conductor was not so happy.

Towards the front of the train, her father, John, acted as a spotter, giving Edwards a brief warning of upcoming photo opportunities.

Katie Edwards Two deer in a wide open landscape with mountains in the distanceKatie Edwards

At one point, John shouted: “Deer,” through the phone.

“I wasn’t quick enough,” Edwards says.

“But if there was one deer, there would be more.

“Finally, my concentration paid off and I secured a shot of two little deer almost touching noses in front of a huge cliff face.

“I was very happy.”

Katie Edwards Three figures with their bottoms exposed in the distance (Blurred image)Katie Edwards

A more unexpected message from John was simply: “Moony.”

At first, Edwards thought she had misheard but set about taking pictures anyway.

“I quickly looked back at my photos,” she says.

“There was indeed a perfect line of bottoms opposite the train.”

Katie Edwards Smoke rises from a factory behind a red railway carriageKatie Edwards
Katie Edwards The red light of a rail crossing in Cutbank, a town in Montana that began in 1891 with the arrival of the Great Northern Railway

Katie Edwards
Katie Edwards Farmland in KansasKatie Edwards

But while photographing the farmland of Illinois, Edwards missed a frame she wished she had shot.

“I had been standing at the window for hours, my feet were hurting and my eyes were glazing over,” she says.

“And an exquisite moment passed me by.

“A queue of army tanks were waiting at a crossing and, if that wasn’t enough, a baby deer was looking up at the first tank in fear or curiosity or both.

“Gone in a second – if I’d been concentrating, I could have caught that moment.”

Katie Edwards The Riverside Cemetery in Denver, Colorado Katie Edwards

Edwards describes each picture as a fragment of a larger narrative.

“The journey itself became a storyline that traversed different geographical and cultural landscapes,” she says.

Katie Edwards The mountains of Glacier National ParkKatie Edwards
Katie Edwards Grain silosKatie Edwards
Katie Edwards Cattle running in a fieldKatie Edwards

An eight-hour delay meant Edwards found herself amid large open plains as the light faded towards the end of the day.

“I was able to see for hundreds of miles on either side and this created bizarre effects with the light as it hit specific strips of land in the expanse,” she says.

Returning to the UK meant long days of editing, reducing the thousands of pictures to just 20 for an exhibition at London’s Observatory Photography Gallery.

Katie Edwards A panoramic image made up of different photographs showing field and cattleKatie Edwards

Laying all the images together created panoramic views of fields and stations, each elongated or contracted depending on the speed of the train.

“Looking at the mosaic of all the pictures, you can see strata as you move from one landscape to another,” Edwards says.

Katie Edwards A ladder coming out of a lake in front of snow capped mountainsKatie Edwards

“This image was the very last one that I found in my search, discovered three months after it was taken, it almost didn’t make the exhibition.

“The rungs of the ladder make me feel as if I could climb the mountain in just a few steps.”

Portrait of America is at London’s Observatory Photography Gallery from 26 September to 25 January.

More of Edwards’s work can be seen on Instagram.

Katie Edwards Katie Edwards sitting in the vestibule of a train with her cameraKatie Edwards



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