- Artificial Light
- Motion Blur
- Train
- simple
- Rule of thirds
- Posed
- natural frames
- Movement
- Leading lines
- Blur
- Indoor
- holding each other
- full body
- Center Framed
- calm
- Bright
- Train Station
The story behind the image
Directions
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
We talked through everything before we set up the shot because it gets quite loud when the subway arrives or departs and I never feel comfortable shouting instructions when strangers are around so everything was discussed beforehand. For this photo I wanted them to stay as still as possible since it would be a longer exposure than usual and therefore the pose had to be static – no movement etc.
What did you say?
Could you please stay as still as possible and don’t move for as long as the subway needs to arrive or depart? Touching your forehead and nose should work best. I’ll let you know when we’re done – we might have to redo this a few times as it could turn out pretty cool or just meh.
Tone of Directions
Calm
Composition
It was clear that I wanted to have the couple centered in the frame (as I do so often) and a bit further away from the camera to be able to include the subway. I wanted to give the image some “headspace” so I included the lights above them and also to have more “static” elements in the image. That way you’d be able to recognize better what part of the image is “moving” and which part is not. The way the door is framing the couple is pure luck and coincidence as I just held the shutter button for as long as the subway was moving.
framing
Center Framed
Focusing
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
As always I shot this photo with continuous autofocus on my Sony (focus area wide) and put the focus field right over the middle of the image where the couple was standing. This wasn’t really necessary since single shot autofocus or even manual focus would have worked perfectly or even better but usually, I’m just too lazy to change that and it works most of the time. That being said, continuous autofocus can easily mess up shots like these when people pass through the image or the autofocus starts hunting for something else. If you want to be safe – switch to AF-S or manual focus so there would be one less thing to worry about when the action happens.
Focus Mode
Continuous Autofocus
Focus POints
Multi Point
Focused on
the couple
Equipment &
Exif
Camera
Lens
Flash
Filter
1/35 @ f/1.4 ISO125 WB-4000K
The way the EXIF is written out follows the common photographic method (with the inclusion of White Balance at the end). Here it is broken down:
Shutter Speed @ Aperture ISO White Balance.
Light & Weather
I love the lights in subway stations as they are this long string of lights connected together and when the subject is placed beneath them it creates a beautiful soft light that wraps around the subject and makes it stand out. The lights were above the couple so I just had to place them directly under them. There is just a bit of warm backlight from the subway which is a great contrast to that cool overhead light.
Light Type
Artificial Light
Weather
Indoor
Editing Workflow
How did you edit this image?
I used a modified version of the preset from Anni Graham called “yosemite 01” on this image. After I imported the photos and culled through them I usually apply the preset over every image and for these underground set of photos I wanted a bit of a cooler tone in the highlights. I changed the highlight tones from yellow to a blueish/greenish hue. Not a lot – just very subtle to emphasize that subway/underground feeling with these cold artificial lights. I adjusted the crop to make everything straight and symmetrical and also brightened and warmed up the image by using the exposure and white balance slider. Afterwards I added quite a bit of contrast since I was using a black pro mist filter (1/4 strength) and it would have looked a bit washed out. But I love using a pro mist filter with artificial light as the lights “bloom” and gives a bit of a hazy look.
Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom Classic
Preset Used
Challenges
We had to redo this photo a few times as people were leaving and entering the subway which wasn’t too bad since it wasn’t rush hour..or so I think. The subway was departing every few minutes so we had a few tries and didn’t lose too much time.
Solutions
We just tried a couple times to not get as many people in the shot. With an exposure time of 1/35s I had to keep the camera super steady so I crouched and held my breath and tried to stay as still as possible.
Location
Location Name
Volkstheater Ubahn-Station
Location aDDRESS
Burggasse, 1070 Wien
Loation Type
City
Country
Austria
I’ve learned that it helps to use the maximum burst rate of your camera every now and then to have more options to choose from. I wish I would have experimented more with different exposure times. In hindsight I should have tried 1/2s or even 1s but then things might have been too blurry. I’ll have to try that next time :)
