Moscow Metro
Moscow metro might just be the best thing about the Russian capital. Many of its most beautiful stations were built during the Stalinist era in an extravagant, highly decorative socialist classist style with elements of Art Deco and Baroque goodness: marble columns - check; relief sculptures and frescoes - check; extravagant chandeliers and other amazing lighting systems - check; arches, golden ceilings, stained glass and mosaics - check. Add to all this the fast, seemingly endless escalators (its one of world's deepest) and the rickety but totally functional trains, and you're in for a ride worth taking. With an average daily ridership of about 7 million, you won't be alone either - it's one of the world's busiest and most extensive metro systems.
With a couple of hours to kill between trains, my girlfriend and I decided to hit some of the best-looking stations to take some long exposures. Unfortunately, setting up a full tripod was not allowed by metro security, so we had to do our best with a gorilla pod. Exposures ranged from 15 to 30 seconds in order to try to 'erase' the people moving through the stations to create a sense of emptiness and highlight the architectural/decorative features of each station.
With a couple of hours to kill between trains, my girlfriend and I decided to hit some of the best-looking stations to take some long exposures. Unfortunately, setting up a full tripod was not allowed by metro security, so we had to do our best with a gorilla pod. Exposures ranged from 15 to 30 seconds in order to try to 'erase' the people moving through the stations to create a sense of emptiness and highlight the architectural/decorative features of each station.
escalating down into the bowels of the beast
Mayakovskaya station - opened in 1938
Sokol - opened in 1938
Aeroport - opened in 1938
Beloruskaya - opened in 1938
Elektrozavodskaya - opened in 1944
Taganskaya - opened in 1950
Novoslobodskaya - opened in 1952
Komsomolskaya - opened in 1952
Kiyevskaya - opened in 1954
All photos taken with Sony a6000 and Rokinon 12mm f2