Title • intimate escalation

This is almost the last of the shots I took while I was away last week, and despite a number of limitations I think it's one of my favourites. It was snapped as I was going down one escalator and the two women were going up, so given the slow shutter speed I'm quite pleased that they're both mostly in focus. There are two things that I'm not overly happy about though, both of which aren't too serious.

First, the angle is slightly off. I was supporting the camera on the escalator's handrail and obviously didn't hold it quite level, but on the whole I don't think this detracts too badly from the shot. Second, the shot was both unevenly lit and mildy underexposed. To correct this I converted the image to black and white by using the Channel Mixer to extract the red channel (as described here). The benefit of this method (rather than a straight desaturation) is that it lifts the skin tones, particularly noticeable for the woman on the right.