Ivo Peters an English railway photographer and videographer.

Ivo Peters BEM (29 July 1915 – 7 June 1989) was an English railway photographer and filmmaker. Peters spent his life in Bath, Somerset and is best known for his amateur photographs and cine films of steam railways in the British Isles, particularly of the Somerset and Dorset Railway.

Early life

Ivo Peters took his first railway photograph in 1925 at Mortehoe and Woolacombe railway station, and continued until 1934, when, while studying at the University of Cambridge, his interest was diverted to road racing in Ireland with a chain drive Frazer Nash car. In World War II, and for many years afterwards, he served in the (Royal) Observer Corps, for which he was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1958. He worked in the management of his family soap works.

Railway photography and filmmaking

Peters returned to railway photography in 1948 and became a prolific recorder of steam railways in the British Isles. He was particularly fond of the Somerset and Dorset Railway, which he photographed extensively from 1948 until its closure in 1966. He also photographed other railways in the south of England, including the Southern Railway, the Western Region of British Railways, and the Somerset and Avon Railway.

Peters was known for his high-quality black and white photographs, which often captured the atmosphere of steam railways. He also experimented with color photography and filmmaking in the later years of his life.

Legacy

Peters’s photographs and films are now widely admired and are considered to be among the finest records of steam railways in the British Isles. His work has been published in numerous books and magazines, and he has been the subject of several exhibitions.

Peters was a member of the Royal Photographic Society and the Railway Photographic Society. He was also a founder member of the Somerset and Dorset Railway Preservation Society.

Books by Ivo Peters

The Somerset and Dorset: An English cross-country railway (1955)
Somewhere along the line: Fifty years love of trains (1983)
THE SOMERSET & DORSET IN THE FIFTIES – Omnibus Edition (2012)
Somerset and Dorset in the Fifties: Part 1 (2012)
The Somerset And Dorset In The Sixties Volume Three 1960-1962 (2013)
Somerset and Dorset in the Sixties Vol. (2015)

Awards and honors

British Empire Medal (BEM) (1958)

Ivo Peters died on 7 June 1989 at the age of 73.