Woking Electrical Control Room

The first three of what may be 4-5 from a visit to the British Railways Woking Electrical Control Room on its annual opening for the Heritage Open Days scheme:

1.


Old Electrical by Chris Roughley, on Flickr

2.



3.



Criticism welcome for all three - but I'm particularly interested in any comments on number 3. I've stared at it for so long that I've given up editing it. I've also started to hate the teal column on the right, and feel like it significantly weakens the image. Sadly none of the other control panels had the perfectly arranged and lovely coloured wiring, so it was that or nothing!

A tantalising glimpse into what looks like a fascinating location! Give us more please . I like the cool, silvery colour balance you've set for these, eliminating any bad lighting tones. No 2 has a great, matter of fact symmetrical starkness to it, and the narrow DOF effect in No 1 works well for that type of subject.

I agree that the third is problematic ...could it be as simple as just cropping off all the green bit? Perhaps a closer-in look might have worked better for that one .... Also, is that your flash lighting that one? If so, it may be a little direct and harsh. But I appreciate there might have been no alternative .. if so then I'd suggest less flash exposure, especially with so much black around.

Thanks for the comment - but sadly there might not be any more of the location. The interior is terribly lit with weird colours, and there were a fair few people milling around limiting the time to take decent shots. There might be a close-up of one of the breaker boards and possibly one other to come, though...

There's no flash at all in any of the shots (I actually probably could have used some in the second one, since it looks a bit flat). Number three was a bugger because it was facing a nice bright window, but all the electronics were recessed, so everything around overexposed, hence the big glowing pillar!

Cropping out the column makes the picture dramatically unbalanced, but I've been playing with tighter crops since posting, and think this may be a better result:




Luckily the 18-135 is pretty great at 48mm, so no issue with a severe crop. I just wish I'd had the presence of mind to shoot this with the 50 1.8 from a little closer!

Yes, it's probably best to crop in and remove the distracting edges. It's funny how lights can look like flash sometimes, although I probably have flash on the brain, so I always think there's flash!

I look forward to seeing any others.

All look fine to me.

Final versions of the two others above:



Control by Chris Roughley, on Flickr



Wiring by Chris Roughley, on Flickr

And two others which I edited somewhat but wasn't happy with, and gave up. Gives a bit of a better feel for the location, though. A 1930s art-deco building, retrofitted repeatedly, then really frozen in time in 1997 when it was shut down...

I like those all as well .... the close up into the electrical wiring has real presence, so real, like you're really looking right at it, and the others have nice cool colours again. Great detail and exposures throughout

I like the tones in the last one.....from my point of view a pity you've cropped off Alton, as I am typing this next to the Alresford end of the Watercress Line, which joins Network Rail at Alton, but was never electrified. I agree about the closer crop on number three. The mixture of eras is quite fascinating, and you have made good use of the lighting - do you carry a pop up reflector in your camera bag? Even a small one can be used to direct a little bit of light into the shadows

No lighting equipment with me at all in the bag (except for the built-in flash) - but I really could have done with a reflector, and might well look to get something easily portable to fit in.

The lighting inside the main room was a nightmare to work with (the white balance was impossible to determine once in there), so I need a WB card as well! Sadly Alton was cut off as a result of this - the right end of the photo was very yellow, but the Alton end was almost violet as there was a doorway next to it letting natural light through. I found it particularly difficult to get the two ends balanced in PP, and I eventually gave up and cropped it. I might return to it in the future, who knows!