Blurred Vision

I had been toying with the idea of shooting some stuff at Nottingham Train Station ever since i discovered it was getting a revamp. I received an email from Brett Jefferson, Director of ‘Shoot experience’ in London after he saw a Flickr group i started a few years ago called ‘Street Photography in UK’. He asked if i could promote the new International Street Photography Competition he was hosting in July this year through the group as well as inviting me to enter the contest while i was at it Of course i agreed on both counts!

Now i have an awful lot of images as you can imagine, but i felt i needed to produce something new to enter in and the idea of work made at the station would fit perfectly.

After nearly a month we had secured permission from East Midlands Trains to do the shoot and they had agreed to allowing me in on 28th February 2011 as long as i didn’t use flash, wouldn’t use a tripod within 1.5 metres of the platform edge, didn’t take photographs of the CCTV positions…..oh….and that they get all the finished images.

No Problem!

Ok so, i had permission, a date and a reason for doing it, all i needed now was a theme or style for the photos. This was proving to be quite tricky, the PR that had been written about the project was using the documenting the old station angle and shooting the commuters. This is not what i ended up with.

I came to realise that people didn't really have time to stop still long enough to be talked at by me as i explain what I'm doing, that i just photographed them and would they just like to fill out this form to allow me to use the images!

How could i take images of people at a station (that wasn’t busy by the way) without facial recognition being a stumbling block…..err….ah! Blur! No not the band, but motion blur and if i zoom while the shutter is open then that will give the illusion of movement and rushing.

I turned up at 9am walked up to the security turnstiles and was allowed through to see the station supervisor who has an office on platform 3. I got down there only to find he knew very little about my visit and for a moment i thought i was going to be asked to leave….but my luck was in and he allowed me to sign in.

I spent about about for hours on the platform and got what i thought was going to be disappointing stock on the cameras. Whilst there i was filmed for a short documentary. before i froze to death i signed out and left.

What i ended up with in the end i was extremely pleased with and i have my quota for the competition. To see the results have a look at my portfolio page on the website.