If one of the main purposes of a still photograph is to capture the moment, Sebastião Salgado’s photograph of the Churchgate station in Bombay does exactly the opposite; it channels a perpetual movement and connects the past to the future, yet without a defined starting or finishing point.

Two trains parallel to each other are robustly immobile at the railway station, surrounded by a sea of crowds. Multiple huge billboards are hanging from the ceiling, carrying the word or name “WILLS” in Latin script. More advertising posters can be seen on the right side of the photograph with another name this time, “John Miller”. Although the names and writing seem to originate from an English speaking country, there are quite a few elements in the photograph that just denote the opposite: the over-crowded station, the bright-coloured garments of the people and – if one notices close enough – a few billboards with what seems to be a southern Asian script (one to the lower left and one to the upper right side). Even without knowing the exact location of this railway station, one can imagine it is a hot and sunny place, where people prefer to wear bright clothes to deter the sun and heat. The English billboards imply that this country was an English ex-colony, or, what nowadays is the norm around the world, a westernised culture.

The symmetry lines composing the photograph are almost impeccable, especially with the two trains facing the singularity: the vanishing point behind the billboards, the point that is both the destination and the origin. But the crowd in the photo is unidirectional, whereas the individual – assuming that the passengers are commuting to Bombay for work daily – is oscillating between two points: the departure and the arrival. The cables holding the platform numbers, lights and speakers, hanging vertically from the ceiling, add to the overall symmetry of the graphic composition of the photograph, ironically cutting through the imposing billboards, as well as the crowd and the trains. The perspective composed by the parallel trains not only offers a 3-dimensional aspect, but also a direction; not for the people – as they will scatter at the moment they exit the station, but at least for the trains, which seem to end their trip here, as the buffer stops on the side of the platforms suggest.   

The striking dynamical movement of the crowd – possibly created by the use of long exposure – in juxtaposition with the static trains creates an oxymoron: the fast motion of trains in contradiction to the slow human biomechanics. Does the human motion here exceed the speed of train? Is the crowd a faster machine than the locomotive of a train? Where are all these people going to? Where did they come from? Have they travelled long? Time and space are as blurred as each one of these figures is in the middle of the rushing human torrent. The closer to the camera the stronger is the effect of blurring of the figures, as well as the trace of their trajectory, and the figures do not even seem human anymore; is the photographer questioning the compromise of human connection in an overcrowded city?

Astonishing is the fact that only 4 people escaped the shutter’s long exposure intention (this task may as well be like “Where’s Wally?”, please feel free to find more static human figures in the photograph!). A man standing with his briefcase on the floor can be seen on the left side, just at the edge of the platform, facing the crowd walking towards him; has he missed his train, did he arrive too early, or is he looking for a friend? On the right side, two men are standing next to each other, possibly taking a break from work. A woman is seating at a bench on the left; loneliness can be intensified when surrounded by big crowds.   

One wonders whether the photo is taken from a footbridge over the rails or if the photographer had an exclusive permit to access this point to take the picture. Is it a privilege to be able to take a moment and reflect in a busy and demanding life of an overcrowded city, where people are struggling to get a job, earn a living and survive the hardships of inequality? Could the average commuter experience this phenomenon, looking down towards the crowd? Salgado raises the issues of population growth in India already almost 30 years ago with this photograph, noting that although the station was relatively small, at rush-hour the trains arrive every 20 seconds (2001: 13).

No matter what the intention of the photographer is though, the dynamism of the moving crowd cutting through the static trains make the moment vivid, as if this collective human movement is reoccurring with every glance at the photograph. 

Bibliography

Salgado, S. (2001) ‘Exodus Migrations Against All Odds’, Aperture, (163), pp. 1–19.