London Ink Photo | TrekEarth

Photographer’s Note

Victoria Station, London

Scene
An advertisement for a reality television show. I believe London Ink is about a tattoo parlor and the people who patronize the establishment. This was captured in the main arrivals and departure hall of London Victoria Station. This is one of the main stations serving the south and south east counties of the United Kingdom. Computers fill this station and the associated Underground Station to bursting proportions during the morning and evening compute. This station also has a two tiered shopping mall attached to it.

Background
My wife and I and our traveling companions were visiting London in late September last year before heading north to Scotland and Yorkshire. Our hotel was just two blocks toward the river from Victoria Station so we used the station as our main transportation hub to get around the city.

This was a difficult image to PP because of the flash and the mixed lighting in the station. I adjusted the lighting in the RAW converter for the flash and that took care of the color cast around the main subject but left the rest of the image with a strong green/yellow cast. I tried my color cast technique and that removed some of the cast but I was unable to address the cast in the shadows to the right. I combined my layers and neutralized the image in Match Color - this solved most of the station problems but added a new problem to the subject area. I then added a mask to the Neutralized combined layer and painted out the effects over the subject. This worked for the most part. I think it looks like the interior of the station that I remember.

Dyerco, jhm, Photo65Net, feather, scobert, crhieatt, John_F_Kennedy, pboehringer, kmarscher, Wandering_Dan, plimrn, crckt has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Dyerco (9318) 2008-03-12 20:56

An interesting shot. Good PP to neutralize the light. I assume this is not a real person.
Phil

jhm (83446) 2008-03-13 4:22

Hello John,

I find your interior shot with the Victoria Station as subject very well.
It's always very difficult for make a good picture, but you did excellent.
Composition and sharpness and clarity are superb.
Very well done.

Best regards,
John.

Photo65Net (43096) 2008-03-13 7:32

John,
Interesting ad !
Your framing is very god, enhancing the length of the "statue", and your note is very informative, especially on your PP, and I like it.
Regards,
JB.

feather (50230) 2008-03-13 7:56

This is something different from you John. I bet you had to do a double take to see if she was real or not. It sounds as if the PP has given you a real headache. Thank you for sharing the information with us as it looks to have been successful to my eyes. Maybe her missing feet is an issue but I am pretty sure you were as far back as you could get. Good work
Kath

scobert (5333) 2008-03-13 10:27

Hi John,
It would have been impossible for you to have the desired color tempurature for both the flourescent and tungsten lighting in the background and for daylight balanced fill-flash in the foreground without using gel filters. I don't believe that using gels is worth worth the time and effort for most situations (they would have been critical for using film). Even good television series like "Law and Order", with professional film photographers, don't try to balance the lighting perfectly. I can always see how they use fill lights to compensate for the ambient light. Your photo looks fine to me and is a hilarious one at that! The British almost make as much fun of themselves as they do Americans. This is an excellent shot with excellent technique!
Stan

crhieatt (5145) 2008-03-13 12:19

John,
Looks very Alice in Wonderland to me - but I'm quite prepared to believe you when you say it's Victoria Station; it's a large city, full of strange things!
Regards
Colin

John_F_Kennedy (32080) 2008-03-14 3:29

Intersting scenerey. This is a great and very well composed photo. I like it.
Best wishes,
Achim

pboehringer (770) 2008-03-15 20:02

John,
what a weird moment that you captured here. It took me a while to really get into it and understand what was going on here. Maybe some similar difficulty for me here as you had with some of my latest posts coming from Istanbul. Have you ever thought of acquiring a WB filter? Not quite sure if that would have helped you in the "field" and diminuished your "darkroom" work.
Peter

kmarscher (2881) 2008-03-16 8:48

This is a stretch from your beautifully rendered landscapes and I applaud your sharing this on Trek. Too often I see folks limit their creativity to landscapes ONLY. I like this very much. This is too funny and a terrific addition to your travelogue. Very well done!
Kathy

Wandering_Dan (3299) 2008-03-16 9:25

Hello, John -

Very nice composition, and excellent use of PP to bring it out. Good note, too, though I didn't follow all of it. I really have to start learning more about the options Photoshop gives me.

Best,
Dan

Davidwh (3654) 2008-03-17 8:57

Hi John,
A pretty original looking advert and quite an eyecatcher. A good angle making the model look even more larger than life.Good handling of the low light and the flash balanced just about right.Take care and TFS.
Regards, David

plimrn (19754) 2008-03-21 17:24

Hi John,
Train stattions are an excellent way to capture the flavor of a city in the here and now; this photo looks just like I imagine modern London, having never visited.
I appreciate your very interwesting note telling how you managed the difficult light here, we often encounter mixed lighting when shooting musicians and I will refer to you note.
HLJ, Pat

crckt (7102) 2008-04-01 12:27

Hi John,
This is an unusual shot, something I might not have noticed myself. keen eyes you've got, good job. Well done considering the difficult light conditions.
Regards,
Shaeri