Gregory Berg

Gregory Berg is a New York-based photographer and urban explorer that photographs parts of the subway that most people never want to see. Throughout New York City there are dozens of closed stations and platforms, some of which are decaying very quickly. Berg says “I find abandoned subway stations of maps, jump into active platforms and walk the live tracks, avoiding the 3rd rail and moving trains” which shows just how dedicated his to his photography. Some of the photographs that Berg takes shows colours and textures that are almost of a dystopian underworld that no one ever sees.

I have chosen to look at Berg as I hope to take inspiration from his work when looking at exploration. I will show the urban exploration side of his work in my photographs and hope that my photographs convey the same secrets of explored areas as Berg’s work does.

My Favourite Photograph

This photograph is taken with the dim light leaking into the abandoned subway station, this creates an ominous environment and so creates mystery within the photograph. A shutter speed of 1/30 or less will have been used with an ISO of 200 or 400 as a low shutter speed would be needed to allow enough light to enter the lens from the dimly lit area. There is quite a cold tone to this photograph which emphasises the fact that the area is abandoned and ruined. There is a deep depth of field in this photograph which allows the whole of the photograph to be kept in focus so that the long pathway can be seen.

There is not much colour in this photograph – the only colour that really stands out is the blue light reflecting off of the walls. This pushes the ominous environment that the photograph portrays and at the same time creates contrast with the shadows. The photograph has quite a dark tone in it as there are not many light tones/highlights, this creates an uneasy feeling within the photograph. There is a 3D effect to this photograph as the pathway travels so far from the foreground to the background.

This photograph was taken as part of Berg’s exploration of underground exploration of Brooklyn in New York. To me, this photograph shows how wasteful humans are as they can have something as massive and intricate as this subway station and simply brush it to the side and then forget about it. Berg is trying to show that even if it is forgotten about and run down, it’s still an amazing place to visit.