Let’s trade cities for a bit. Last week, we were situated in Granada, Nicaragua. This week, we’re going to move to an entirely different city in an entirely different part of the world—Berlin, Germany. I visited this wonderful city in February 2014 and loved how easy it was to navigate through their public transportation system. My goal was to see a number of historic sites in the short time that I had and the train was the best way to get me all over town. It’s a little known secret, but photographing in subway and train terminals ranks very high on my overall list. Whether you’re in a subway station in New York City, Washington DC, or even here, in Berlin, there are so many compositional opportunities. The trick is to be creative and patient. You literally have to wait for your photo to come to you.
Fortunately for me, the trains in this station were bright yellow. Perfect! This would translate beautifully in the otherwise dim scene. My first attempt had me standing up while leaning against a steel column. I tried a few different angles but wasn’t happy with the individual light fixtures mounted on the ceiling. It just wasn’t speaking to me.
Unfortunately, the train that I had just photographed was the one I had to take. So, that’s exactly what I did. When I got off at my destination station, I was happy to see a more favorable setup for the light fixtures. They were narrow and linear and made for stronger leading lines. Like the previous photos, I started by photographing to my left and, like before, the photos weren’t jiving with me. When I reviewed them, my position relative to the track left me with a ton of dead space in the foreground and weak leading lines from the lights. It was boring, plain and simple.
Turning around, however, made all the difference in the world! On my right, the vantage point provided me with a much wider expanse of the track and the lights. Both of these would lend themselves perfectly as leading lines to aid the viewer’s eyes through the frame. Also, this time, I found a bench to sit on and I supported my camera on my leg, giving it a lower vantage point. The key was to be patient and wait for the bright yellow train to come to me.
I had very little time to review the photos I was getting because I needed the train to be in motion in order for me to get that blur effect. The photo would have totally fallen flat had the train been still. I managed to sneak a quick peek at the photos and realized that I needed to make a minor change to the way I was holding the camera. I didn’t want as much of the ceiling in the frame as I had, so I tilted the camera download a bit and fired off some frames just as the departing passengers made their way towards me.
At that point, there was no way around it. It was a matter of luck and a camera with a healthy buffer. I essentially rifled off about 15 photos as the passengers walked to me and beyond me, hoping that one of them would be a keeper. Luckily, there was a great shot in the series that had wonderful separation between three passengers, each creating their own vertical lines. Plus, the train had begun departing the station and I was able to get it in its entirety as it moved through the frame. It had all the compositional hallmarks I could ask for.
Processing wise, I knew I wanted to go with a split tone. It’s what I do for almost every subway shot I take. Something about altering the hues of the highlights and shadows in these scenes just butters my bread. My original version had a stronger split toning treatment but I decided to pull back a little, leaving some of the natural color intact. I also made sure to add some structure boosts to the passengers, so they’d really stand off the screen. Finally, I added a saturation and luminosity boost to the yellow channel, letting the train pop.
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Brian Matiash is a Portland-based published photographer and author. He is a member of Sony’s Artisans of Imagery as well as the owner of Matiash, Inc. and the Matiash Shop.
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Filed under: Inspiration, Opinion, Photography, Technique & Tutorials Tagged: Berlin, Brian Matiash, composition, Germany, inspiration, Leading Lines, method_bm, photo methodology, Subway 
