Underground in London

In December 2008 I was lucky enough to secure a place on one of David Hobby’s 1-day Strobist courses.  The venue was London, and I didn’t think twice about flying over and back in the same day.  It meant an early start and a long day, but it was worth the trip, and the information that David dispensed on using strobes to light images will pay dividends for a long time to come.  Ironic then that the only real keeper that I took later that day on a walkabout was to be an available-light shot.

This shot was taken in Goodge Street tube station.  I was on my way to Embankment to get some shots of the London Eye and Westminster Abbey, but a lack of a tripod in the late evening darkness would later hamper me (and attempts to “add” some “creative” blur would prove not very creative and far too blurry).

I arrived into an almost deserted tube station, and while waiting for the next tube took out my camera and used the Live View mode to compose the image you see above.  Metering was using Aperture-Priority mode and I set the aperture to its widest of f/2.8.  As I fired off a few shots, killing time as much as anything else, a couple walked past and sat down at the bench to my left.

In recent times I’ve tended to look for 3 compositional elements in a photo like this which has no immediately obvious subject.  I’m not sure if that even makes sense but to me 1 or 2 elements can be lacking.  In this case, I thought the composition was complete with the addition of the couple on that bench.  The other elements I see in this photo are the “Home Delivery” advert at top right, and the leading lines along the platform edge (or the contrast between the platform and the tracks if you prefer).

This is one of those images that I like better in monochrome.  This is its first time seeing the light of day away from my laptop and actually the more I look at it the more I like it.