This fourth photograph for the assignment, I felt, would meet my proposed target audience well, because the location was quite recognisable and would particularly be of notice to commuters using this train station.

‘The original Charing Cross station building, commissioned by the South Eastern railway and opened on 11 January 1864, was designed by architect Sir John Hawkshaw.’ – (Architecture.com, 2015). However, ‘the appearance of the station soon altered with the completion of the Charing Cross hotel … in 1865’ – (Architecture.com, 2015), which is apparent behind the Evening Standard seller in my photograph. The hotel was built by Edward Middleton Barry in the French Renaissance style in May 1865. ‘Today, Charing Cross is still a busy commuter station, handling over 37 million people every year – (NetworkRail.co.uk, 2014). I wanted to attempt to capture some of that busyness by photographing the Evening Standard seller beside the station, during the rush hour.

As well as attracting my target audience, I felt there was a lot of character present in the photograph; not least from the Evening Standard seller, prominent in the frame. I had ironically captured him at quite a decisive moment; despite the fact that many people had somehow been rushing past him, while he remained in the exact same position: looking ardently for potential customers. This visual discrepancy didn’t take away from the apparent authenticity of the photograph, for me, as it stayed quite natural. This perhaps signified how used people had become to the Evening Standard seller as a stationary part of London life and they momentarily forgot he was in the act of moving in the photograph (it did for me at least).

Photograph 4 – Assignment 3 – Landscape

Despite taking many long exposures for the people rushing by, I was a bit dissatisfied with the seemingly small amount of ghost figures induced from these long exposures. I would again put this down to time of day and lack of quality lighting as I tried shutter speeds ranging from 2 to 6 seconds for the long exposures. As it was, the ghost figures were more apparent closer to the station as the quality of lighting increased and the general flow pattern of people was more evident. There wasn’t a lack of people passing by near the foreground either. In fact, I had to wait quite patiently and fervently for an ‘opening’ to appear, where the Evening Standard seller was separate from the crowd in his kiosk.

Camera settings for Photograph 4 were:

Because I took multiple exposures and combined them (one for the Evening Standard seller and a handful for the long exposures of the tourists/commuters passing by), I have written down the settings separately for firstly the photograph to ‘freeze’ the Evening Standard seller and then a setting representative for one of the long exposures.

Evening Standard seller exposure:

f/4, 1/20s, ISO 3200, focal length 22mm and no neutral density filter. A tripod and cable release were used.

Long exposure:

f/9, 3.2 seconds, ISO 250, focal length 22mm and no neutral density filter. A tripod and cable release were used.

References:

Architecture.com. (2015). Charing Cross railway station. [online] Available at: https://www.architecture.com/Explore/Buildings/CharingCross.aspx [Accessed 18 Nov. 2015].