20. Busy Traffic

The primary environment in which I have been working recently within in which I could observe the surge of crowds of people are underground railway stations.

The station I chose was Muenchner Freiheit, already featured as part of my submission for assignment 3.  A subway station is only crowded by interval.  Normally the station is quiet with a few people waiting for a train

But when a train arrives things begin to happen:

Although in the above case only a few people were waiting for this train, but there can be quite a crowd

I wanted a sequence that showed the formation and dynamic of a crowded station.  The following photographs show a train arriving and the people on the platform reacting to that moment.  To takes thee pictures I positioned myself on an escalator shooting down as the people came off the train and headed for the exit:

At other times the station was always busy and small groups would converge as and when trains appeared:

Within the subway station all of the images were taken using either 24 or 17mm focal lengths, an alternate (and much older) photographic effect is to use a 200mm telephoto, which places the photographer directly into the crowd:

I also experimented with crowds of people shopping, but this was more of a general drift of people, it lacked the dynamic surges that occurred within the subway station, but they have a charm as well:

Bored with shopping!

Hang on to Mummy!

German style stag do, the boys were the leather trousers and the groom to be gets the Dirndl.  It is traditional in Germany to sell small objects, drinks, chocolate to passers by to raise funds for the drinking.  It is all very good natured and quite fun:

Another approach to crowds is to hold the camera low and change the perspective: