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Circa 1910. "Train concourse, Union Station, Washington, D.C." Time exposure capturing hundreds of ephemeral footfalls. 8x10 glass negative. View full size.
I guess we can surmise that the man in the distance remained motionless for the entire exposure. How could he avoid checking his iPhone for such a long time?
It's too bad they had to block those skylights when they restored the building in the 80s. It's lovely to see how it was intended to look in the day, with the light pouring through.
This is a great photo. One of my all time favorites on Shorpy. I have it in my bookmarks to eventually order a print.
Those lights look like arc lamps. Are they? I've never seen arc lamps used indoors before. How were they serviced? Was there a way to lower them like outdoor arcs? And what about the fumes?
I did something similar in a panoramic photo on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Instead of a long exposure, I did multiple exposures at several angles, then stacked them in Photoshop, and used the statistics function to remove the differences (all the cars and pedestrians), and then stitched the panorama. Have a look below, though the 490 px width limits the photo's impact.
[Try this: Upload a larger second photo, uncheck "list" for both pictures, and use html to make the 490px photo enlarge. - Dave]
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