I am still going through and processing photos taken last month at the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn. This is a single exposure HDR image taken with a Sony A7Riv and a Laowa 15mm f/2 lens.

One thing I wanted to try was modifying the photo to give it the appearance of movement. Subways should always be moving through tunnels (we hope) and by applying some motion blur only to the windows it gives the illusion of hurtling down the tracks under the NYC streets.

NY Transit Museum: Black and white image of a vintage subway car appearing to move through tunnels at speed. HDR Photo
Vintage Subway Car Moving Through Time – NY Transit Museum, Brooklyn

Transit (ing) Time

The Transit Museum’s 1936 Subway Station sets up the scene perfectly. Period posters with ads for no longer available products. Hell, some products couldn’t exist in today’s world without having a protest or two 😂. Walking through the various cars really does make you wish for simpler (and more comfortable) times in our past.

This image was processed using Adobe Lightroom, On1 Photo Raw, and On1 NoNoise. I masked out each of the windows and applied motion blur to give the feeling of moving, converted to black and white using a custom LUT I created and added some dynamic contrast over the majority of the image. The lights were blown out so I used a masking brush to reduce the highlights and luminosity as necessary.

I’ve added this image to the New York photo gallery elsewhere on this site, where I also posted other photos from the Transit museum. Once I get a few things worked out, I will also be adding it for purchase on my Store.

I have a couple more photos in queue to work on from this trip, and I will definitely be going back. The Transit Museum rotates the cars often, so each visit will have a different set of subjects to shoot 🖤


Photo EXIF Data:

  • Camera: ILCE-7RM4
  • ISO: 800
  • Location: 40° 41.42292′ 0″ N 73° 59.540401′ 0″ W
  • Title: NYC Vintage Subway – Moving Through Time

Image Location:

John P. Hoke

John P. Hoke headshot

Cyber Security Professional, Photographer, Coffee Junkie, Mac Addict, Craft Beer & Whiskey connoisseur, all around curmudgeon and generally sarcastic SOB – Not necessarily in that order.

The opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone and not those of my employer, family, pets, the voices in my head, or anyone else for that matter … hell in an hour they may not be mine either 🙂

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