Otto Berkeley
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Green Park is one of several stations on the London Underground with a distinctive look and feel, and this particular tunnel, which connects the Piccadilly Line and Jubilee Lines, was a location I'd been looking forward to visiting for a while. I was fascinated by its space-age tones and the intricate detail of the tiles along its walls, which gradually transition in colour as the tunnel leads from one underground line to the other, fading from blue and silver towards grey and white.
As with most of the city's underground stations, particularly those so close to the city centre, the main challenge was finding an opportunity to capture it empty. This was my second early-morning visit, both of them a few minutes after the station had opened. On the first occasion I was shooting multiple exposures at a high ISO and with a wide aperture, with the camera resting on the blue railing at the centre of the tunnel. Although the shots were workable, I knew I would later be aiming for a clean, high-key finish and would place most of the emphasis on the longer and brighter exposures. For this reason, I revisited the station a few weeks later and reshot the same spot with a tripod, which allowed me to step back and reframe the image to include more of the railing and ensure steadier exposures.
The other significant challenge was the lighting along the tunnel, as the roof panel slopes very slightly on the left. Realigning this at the editing stage was straightforward enough, but the asymmetrical angle -- coupled with the fact that several of the strip lights along the tunnel had blown out -- meant the light from the roof was hitting the two sides of the tunnel at different heights and with different intensity. This was more difficult to correct, and required a number of Curves and Levels adjustments in Photoshop to carefully rebalance the overall exposure along the tunnel.
With these challenges out of the way, the rest of the process was fairly straightforward. I blended multiple exposures, preserving the highlights along the tunnel while placing most of the emphasis on the midtones and shadow detail in the brighter exposures. I then isolated several portions of the tunnel with the Pen Tool, creating selections for the railing, the walls, the roof and the ground. After this, I colour-graded the image, shifting most of the balance towards cooler tones, but leaving a hint of warmth along the ground and in the lights overhead as I felt this complemented the various shades of blue and helped draw attention to the lines leading into the distance.
The stage I spent the most time working on was the tunnel walls, as it was important to me to find the right level of contrast and colour to bring out the detail in the tiles. To achieve this, I used a combination of low-opacity Colour Lookups set to Soft Light, which helped to clearly distinguish the contrast between the blue and silver tiles from the white tiles, and then a Gradient Map targeted to the walls, which allowed me to inject a gentle amount of blue back into the shadows of the white tiles so the tones in the wall would match the tones across the rest of the image.
The final stage was some minor vignetting, which was largely achieved using Curves adjustments and radial Gradient Masks. This last stage was again intended to guide the viewer's eye to the light at the end of the tunnel, but I felt this also brought out the drama in the station's unique design and architecture, which can be so easy to miss but which can sometimes help to turn a tedious London commute into an inspiring one.
You can also connect with me on Facebook, 500px, Google+ and Instagram.
Binary
Green Park is one of several stations on the London Underground with a distinctive look and feel, and this particular tunnel, which connects the Piccadilly Line and Jubilee Lines, was a location I'd been looking forward to visiting for a while. I was fascinated by its space-age tones and the intricate detail of the tiles along its walls, which gradually transition in colour as the tunnel leads from one underground line to the other, fading from blue and silver towards grey and white.
As with most of the city's underground stations, particularly those so close to the city centre, the main challenge was finding an opportunity to capture it empty. This was my second early-morning visit, both of them a few minutes after the station had opened. On the first occasion I was shooting multiple exposures at a high ISO and with a wide aperture, with the camera resting on the blue railing at the centre of the tunnel. Although the shots were workable, I knew I would later be aiming for a clean, high-key finish and would place most of the emphasis on the longer and brighter exposures. For this reason, I revisited the station a few weeks later and reshot the same spot with a tripod, which allowed me to step back and reframe the image to include more of the railing and ensure steadier exposures.
The other significant challenge was the lighting along the tunnel, as the roof panel slopes very slightly on the left. Realigning this at the editing stage was straightforward enough, but the asymmetrical angle -- coupled with the fact that several of the strip lights along the tunnel had blown out -- meant the light from the roof was hitting the two sides of the tunnel at different heights and with different intensity. This was more difficult to correct, and required a number of Curves and Levels adjustments in Photoshop to carefully rebalance the overall exposure along the tunnel.
With these challenges out of the way, the rest of the process was fairly straightforward. I blended multiple exposures, preserving the highlights along the tunnel while placing most of the emphasis on the midtones and shadow detail in the brighter exposures. I then isolated several portions of the tunnel with the Pen Tool, creating selections for the railing, the walls, the roof and the ground. After this, I colour-graded the image, shifting most of the balance towards cooler tones, but leaving a hint of warmth along the ground and in the lights overhead as I felt this complemented the various shades of blue and helped draw attention to the lines leading into the distance.
The stage I spent the most time working on was the tunnel walls, as it was important to me to find the right level of contrast and colour to bring out the detail in the tiles. To achieve this, I used a combination of low-opacity Colour Lookups set to Soft Light, which helped to clearly distinguish the contrast between the blue and silver tiles from the white tiles, and then a Gradient Map targeted to the walls, which allowed me to inject a gentle amount of blue back into the shadows of the white tiles so the tones in the wall would match the tones across the rest of the image.
The final stage was some minor vignetting, which was largely achieved using Curves adjustments and radial Gradient Masks. This last stage was again intended to guide the viewer's eye to the light at the end of the tunnel, but I felt this also brought out the drama in the station's unique design and architecture, which can be so easy to miss but which can sometimes help to turn a tedious London commute into an inspiring one.
You can also connect with me on Facebook, 500px, Google+ and Instagram.