GALLERY OF THE MONTH - FEB 2023 - BANGKOK RAILWAY STATION (HUA LAMPHONG)
This months "Gallery of the month" is taking us to Bangkok, Thailand. It was X-Photographer Rammy Narula, who first inspired me to check out the Hua Lamphong railway station in 2016, after he published his great "Platform 10" phonebook. More about the project and book here.
Officially known as the Bangkok Railway station, the station opened more than a century ago in 1916. I've made three photographic visits to the train station which has been threatened with closure since I was first there in 2016.
The station was named after King Rama IV who was a great fan of railway travel and became inspired by the design of the Frankfurt station when touring around Europe in the early 1900's. Once he got back, he hired the Italian architect duo, Mario Tamagno and Annibali Rigotti, who designed the station in Neo-Renaissance style.
As the station has been a terminus for a number of stations (including the Orient Express to/from Singapore), it has a large waiting room which until a few years ago was always packed with people. The hustle and bustle I saw on my first few trips, stands in stark contrast to todays quietness.
The images were shot with three different Fujifilm set-ups: X-T2 with XF23 f2, X-T3 with XF16 f2.8 and lastly the X100V with and without the Wide angle converter. I tried using a similar style across all images by using a slightly modified Kodachrome II film recipe, developed by FujiXWeekly.
Although much quieter now, the station will likely be open for a number of years. So for those visiting Bangkok, I highly recommend a visit to this Architectural Railway artifact!
Comments