Stills

What effective focus. Everything is so right, this almost looks staged. It was quite some time before I became aware of the gentleman seated on the far right edge of the frame. I just had a wonderful time moving about in the image and enjoying all the places to stop and be entertained--always coming back, of course, to the main character in white. The warm colors bracketing the cooler tones in the center plane do a wonderful job of containing the action. Another enjoyable lesson for me demonstrating that if you combine a simple subject and well-chosen moment combined with expressive exposure, boy do they work.
 

this reminded me of the picture Doug presented of the Chinese shopping center. instead of looking around at what is on sale at each level here I look at the varying warm/cool tones, the scene through the glass, through the windows of the train(?), over the train, people, seats, ceiling.
 

Robert - yes, a train. Eurostar is the high speed (in France only!) connection from London to Brussels and Paris. It moved to St Pancras this year from its original terminus at Waterloo.
 

I don't usually get hung up on the effects of lens distortion, but in a photo with such regularly geometry, such slight distortion can become bothersome. I can't quite get over the urge to straighten those lines. Given how often distortion makes its way into my own photos, this urge is confusing, but I think it has to due with the difference between using distortion as an effect and just leaving it uncorrected. Here it doesn't seem to contribute anything to the photo, so I want to correct it.
 

What a delight. All those shapes and spaces, especially the contrasting new and shinny with the far back patterned wall of the station. The figure in white does pull it together for me. The transparency is a visual puzzle and keeps me wondering.
 

Matt - I did wonder whether the distortion would be commented on. I use this 21mm OM Zuiko lens (42mm in 35mm-speak) as my street lens. The distortion became apparent to me earlier this year and the obvious answer is to use one of the ZD Zuiko lenses for this sort of shot but either one doesn't have one to hand or I am too lazy to change it for a shot like this.

Nice straight line in the middle though!
 

John, not sure how it would fit in with your work flow, but PTlens is a good PS plugin for 'fixing' distortion. Easier than changing lens, although using it always leave me feeling a bit odd, like I've cheated somehow. Silly prejudice.
 

Haven't meant to neglect this image. I very much like it. Although the person in white does show up quickly, I'm happy to see the darker figure across the table as well. Wonderful layers.

About the distortion -- although it does not really bother me, at first glance at this image I thought it was a cruise ship -- fixing the curve might have prevented that. Though maybe not, since (sadly) I've never seen such a nice looking train terminal. I've used Photoshop's Lens Correction filter on occasion to "fix" distortion -- is the PTlens plugin different or easier?
 

Matt - is the edited version above better?!!

Many thanks for the pointer to PTLens, which, amazingly, includes this lens.

Christina - I have Photoshop CS and that doesn't correct lens distortion. PTLens is certainly easy, is a PS plug-in and is reasonably priced. Our train terminals vary from this one here to dire, with some of the best of the Victorian ones being given an overhaul: the downside being that, in addition to being able to get a good cup of coffee, one has to fight one's way past lots of shop/kiosks plonked all over the platform.
 

This has so much interest for such a busy shot. Three people and three bar stools for starters. All that modern glass and metal and darkness down below offset by the glow and classicism above. The train's roof is just about perfect dead centre as the lower half of the shot is very horizontal compared to the very vertical nature of the top half.As Rex said to start this off, the white coated subject seems to be very important in holding this all together.
 

John, much better!

Christina, I'm in the same boat a John, plugging the leaks of an old version of PS! PTlens does have the benefit that it can be calibrated to nearly any lens. Not sure if CS3 can do that.
 

"Not sure if CS3 can do that."

No, it can't. I'll be looking into that plug in. Thanks.
 

Since the distortion didn't bother me, I can't comment on the improvement. Is there now more of the bright area at the top, or am I just more aware of it now?
 

Anita - in absolute terms there is no change in volume of the bright area but there is an optical illusion as I flick from old to new that it looks brighter: but that may merely be my eye registering the difference rather than any real increase in brightness!

Thanks to all for comments and help!
 

Your comment is a relief. That illusion had me doubting myself.