I’ve really enjoyed working on my new ‘Station ghosts’ project, but until this point most of my photos have been taken while I’ve been travelling, as I wait for trains to arrive. Last week I took a more deliberate approach and headed into London with the express intention of using some of the underground stations as backdrops for my ghosts.
The day before I called out to my friends on social media to suggest stations which had interesting architectural features to act as a stage, and I received some fantastic ideas. The station at Canary Wharf was already on my shortlist, with its dramatic top-lit escalators descending into the gloomy depths, so this was where I started my day. Sure enough, the escalators at both ends of the station gave me plenty of opportunities to catch some movement among the commuters passing through.
From Canary Wharf I headed for the Jubilee Line and this meant a change of trains at Westminster Station. The heavy, brutalist architecture has so much potential, but I only managed to capture a few frames before a member of staff told me photography wasn’t permitted, so I moved on. I was pretty certain this wasn’t true, but had no evidence so it didn’t seem worth arguing. Having checked the Transport for London website I discovered I was indeed correct and photography (providing it’s for one’s own interest and not a commercial shoot) is permitted. This was a useful lesson learnt and next time I’ll take a printout of the relevant page of the TfL website with me as evidence!
Heading north on the Jubilee Line my first train terminated at West Hampstead so I took this as an opportunity to use the Art Deco architecture as a backdrop for a photo. The next station up the line (Kilburn) has similar, even more photogenic features, but it was too bright to achieve a slow enough shutter speed - that will have to wait for another day.
From Kilburn I strolled the mile or so to Kilburn Park Station, on the Bakerloo Line, which is even more photogenic. The exterior and interior are decorated with beautiful glazed ceramic tiles but the feature that really interested me was the elegant cupola above the two escalators. I’d gone armed with a suitably wide angle lens and was delighted to find a staircase between the escalators, from where I could safely capture the movement of people descending into the depths, with the cupola above them - exactly the framing I’d hoped for.
Photos taken 3 April 2024
