Stationary Photography

Today, something different. Rather than looking at a single composition topic, I'm going to share with you two pictures of the same subject -- the train station in Ansonia CT.

First, a black and white picture.

A couple points about this composition. The black and white works here because of the wide variety of different tones across the image. The white of the platform's roof structure stands out against the darker tones of the background. We also get a benefit here from the sun reflecting of the polished rails. That helps them stand out against the ballast (rocks) underneath. Besides the different tones, there are also different textures across the image, which allows the different elements to stand out. My saying when shooting black and white is, "you can never have too much contrast." For reference, here's the unmodified version of this photo:

The second shot we'll look at is the same station, but in color.

Here I'm playing around with the repeated pattern of the support beams. The focus point is roughly half way along the platform. The key to this composition is definitely that repeating pattern. The station is on a slight curve, which from this angle means that each post is exposed roughly the same amount from the previous. This photo was also slightly retouched to bring up some of the details. Again, for reference, here is the unmodified version:

In this case you can see that there was very little retouching here.

If you have a picture you'd like to share, and have me talk about the composition, I'd love to hear from you.

Yes, the title of the blog is a pun. I apologize for nothing.