04.09.11, Week 3: Commuting

by pbnb

For a couple of days this week I became one of the thousands of people who commute to London to work each day. A lot of commuters live in the area where my family home is; I don’t think I could cope with how tiring the journey is, even though the train ride is beautiful and quite relaxing.

I had a fair bit of time at the station after work and before the train left, so as I take my camera everywhere it was inevitably spent wandering around taking pictures. The station, finalised in 1854, is a prime example of Brunel’s engineering and truly is a building to be admired. There is an odd palimpsest between a period of British domination, seen in the Victorian stylings of the building, and the current period of continued decline evidenced by the tired looking trains and exhausted commuters.

By composing the picture with the train and commuters at the bottom of the frame and the complicated roofing at the top, I attempted to show the difference between the two periods, connected by the pillars and arches at the sides of the frame. The picture also allowed me to incorporate two of my photographic preoccupations; reflections from the tiled floor and the exaggeration of perspective through sets of parallel lines.

Metadata

• Date taken: 01.09.11
• Aperture: f/5.0
• Speed: 1/5 sec
• ISO: 640
• Focal length: 35mm