During the month of March and April, Sandhill Cranes made their annual spring stopover along the Platte River between Grand Island and North Platte, Nebraska. I had the privilege of photographing and witnessing this great wonder of nature. It is estimated that some 500,000 cranes stop over for 2-4 weeks along this stretch of river, and it has been this way for thousands of years. The Rowe Sanctuary on the Platte River is a protected section of river and wetlands that provides refuge for these migrating birds. The Iain Nicolson Nature Center is supported by the Audubon Society and provides the hub of operations during the busy crane viewing season from late February to early April.

Another annual migration occurred during the same period this year on Nebraska's Platte River. That event was the movement of Union Pacific Railroad's steam locomotive No. 844 east from Cheyenne, Wyoming along the old historic Overland Route. The short train of "Armour Yellow" streamliner coaches was named the "Valley Eagle." The train steamed down through Kansas, Oklahoma and into the Rio Grande valley of southern Texas on what the railroad called the "Heritage Tour." The steam train then came back north through Arkansas and I photographed it coming into Van Buren, Arkansas on a cool rainy afternoon. The next morning my wife and some friends rode the train from Van Buren to Wagoner, Oklahoma.

Steam trains always photograph well in black and white. After all, during the heyday of steam railroading in the 1930s and '40s, most vintage photographs were made with black and white film. With today's digital photography, color images of steam locomotives and their trains gives us a new look at these romantic cultural artifacts from another era. Placed in the right landscape setting, steam trains in color become iconic pieces of art giving us a glimpse of life during our grandparents and great grandparents time.

This color gallery starts with images from Southern Pacific No. 4449's recent epic journey westbound back to it's homebase of Portland, Oregon. The steam train spent the summer in Michigan for special runs out of Owosso, MI. On this westward return, No. 4449 traveled along the southern border of Glacier National Park in Montana on 17 October 2009. The train crossed the Continental Divide at Marias Pass on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe's former Great Northern "Highline Route."

The other color additions to this gallery are from the historic Strasburg Rail Road in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This is Amish country, and tidy farms and fields spread across the rolling hills on the line to Paradise.

Steam trains in color may be found in the "Transportation: Steam Trains: Color" section of this website. These prints are available in open editions and as digital color prints on archival papers.

One of J. P. Bell's photographs, " Santa Fe Depot, Newton, Kansas" has been chosen recently for the Arkansas Arts Council's annual Small Works on Paper show for 2010. This print, a digital photograph on Somerset Velvet paper, also won a purchase award and will be added to the Arts Council's permanent collection. The exhibit opens in January 2010 at the Searcy Art Gallery in Searcy, Arkansas. The show then travels to nine other locations around the state. Information about dates may be obtained at http://www.arkansasarts.com/.

This photograph is a black and white image of Amtrak's "Southwest Chief" at the former Santa Fe Railroad depot in Newton, Kansas. A sign dating back to the 1950s advertising the old Fred Harvey Dining Room is visible in this night time photograph made at about 3 AM. The "Southwest Chief" paused briefly in the night and then departed for Kansas City, Chicago and points east.

This print is available as both a silver print and digital print in open editions and various sizes in the "Transportation: Stations and Depots" section of this website.

A new main gallery has been added. It is simply entitled " Wildlife" and will have images of birds and mammals from North America and East Africa. This past summer, my friend and fellow photographer, Gary Felker, introduced me to avian photography and rekindled my interest in ornithology. Birds in our lives give us daily drama and connection to the wilderness world beyond our towns and cities. This gallery will have images from our summer birding outings in Arkansas and archival images of wildlife from Montana and East Africa.

Another new gallery under "Transportation" has been added and is entitled, "Railroad Stations and Depots." This portfolio brings you images that convey the romance of travel, especially at night. There is adventure in just getting on a train and going somewhere.

I am currently scanning hundreds of the negatives I made before 1984. I will place these photographs into various galleries on this website. Check back from time to time to see these new vintage images. Look especially into the transportation sections for some new glimpses of life before the digital age. We shot everything on film in those analogue days. Let us hope that the digital age does not give us a nasty little surprise if our hard drives fail and our images produced with digital SLRs disappear forever. We might loose a lot of visual cultural history if digital disaster strikes.

Look for a new photo-essay and article by J. P. Bell in the June 2009 issue of Railroad and Railfan magazine about the new streetcar system in Little Rock/North Little Rock, Arkansas.

Here is wishing that everyone had a great start for the New Year in 2009. The end of 2008 brought many new images from the Ozarks and northern Rocky Mountains. Look for new photographs of railroading, aviation, and whitewater canoeing. I am posting new prints of the beautiful Southern Belle passenger train used by the Kansas City Southern Railway for their annual Christmas tour and business train.

Also starting this winter we light up the night with a new series of photographs on some of my favorite Ozark rivers. Paddlers and canoes, bluffs and waterfalls are illuminated by a series of powerful flashes with an Alien Bees studio strobe, 11" reflector, and a portable battery pack. The rivers and mountains are seen as never before in this new series of nighttime photographs.

New photography from northern Montana and the Glacier Park Boat Company’s vintage wooden boats are coming in the near future.

A New Day. God Bless America.

Read the December 2008 issue of Railroad and Railfan magazine to see a story and photographs by J. P. Bell on the use of Arkansas' Reader Railroad steam train used in filming the new western movie, Appaloosa.

Richard Grigsby brought his movie train from Arkansas to the Southwest for this production. Reader steam locomotive No. 2 rolled before the cameras for three days pulling a boxcar and two wooden coaches over the Santa Fe Southern Railway from Lamy to Santa Fe. The Reader Railroad included J.P. as part of the steam train crew to document the use of No. 2 in the movie production. Thanks are in order to Richard Grigsby and the directors and producers of Appaloosa for allowing Bell to photograph an Arkansas steam train in the movies.

Welcome to the updated website for J.P. Bell's photography. This online gallery has been completely redone and should provide many new images from which to choose.

For the first time, digital prints are offered from this website. While the silver gelatin print from the darkroom remains the gold standard for black and white photography, the digital revolution changed everything. Digital color and monochrome prints are today works of art with their own high intrinsic value when printed with archival inks on fine art papers.

We are pleased to offer both traditional silver prints and digital Giclee prints in color and black and white from our gallery in Van Buren, Arkansas and from this online gallery. Cantrell Gallery in Little Rock, Arkansas nows sells our prints. Stop by Cantrell Gallery when you are in central Arkansas and view many of the Little Rock photographs found on this website.

Our new website has photography that is as current as this month and contains favorite images from 20 years ago. Due to the increased functionality of this website, thanks to Jack Brauer's design and software, you should see many new additions to this gallery on a regular basis. So, check back frequently to view fresh material from recent excursions and photography out of the past.