Return to Fred A. and Jane R. Stindt Photography Awards
 Victor Hand at Lake Forest College. Photo by Henry A. Koshollek |
Victor Hand received the 2014 Fred A. and Jane R. Stindt Photography Award for a significant body of work over six decades in the U.S. and abroad, making an outstanding contribution to the photographic interpretation of North America’s railroad history. His professional consulting has had an impact on the railroad scene even today.
“He captures the power and grandeur of steam locomotives over and over again. There is, however, another aspect to his photography that becomes apparent after spending time studying his work: his appreciation for and lyrical presentation of the widely varying landscapes the railroads traverse,” his longtime friend and transportation reporter, Don Phillips, wrote in the introduction to A Steam Odyssey: The Railroad Photographs of Victor Hand (2013). The 162 photographs in the book are a sampling of his best work from almost every major railroad in the U.S. and more than 50 countries, starting in 1955. Hand was a pioneer in the search for foreign steam, which survived much longer in China, Africa, South America, Asia, and the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites than in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. He is coauthor of pioneering books with Harold Edmonson, World Steam in Action, published in English and German editions, and The Love of Trains: Steam and Diesel Locomotives in Action Around the World, published in several English language editions as well as German, Dutch, and Swedish. He is coauthor of Union Pacific: Mainline West (1986). The Trains index credits Hand with 13 articles including Prototype Modeler, Model Railroader, and Railroad Model Craftsman. Mark Entrop, awards committee chairman, presented the R&LHS certificate to Hand on May 16, 2014, at the Conversations about Photography conference of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art. The full citation will appear in Railroad History. |