The amazing Liège-Guillemins railway station
In an effort to spend part of my vacation to Belgium practicing my craft, I spent some time researching potentially interesting buildings I could photograph while I was there. In my research, I came across what appeared to be a very interesting train station in Liège...
As it turned out, the hotel where we were staying to attend the Belgian Grand Prix was right across from this railway station! So I made it a point to find some time to scout the location and plan out some photos.
I later learned it was designed by the Spanish neo-futurist architect, Santiago Calatrava—something that should have been obvious given the resemblance to the architects' design for the NYC transportation hub near World Trade Center. Calatrava is known for his bridge design and that shows here... I wonder if the firm also designed the nearby bridge that brings car-travelers into the station...
The only time frame I had to scout the location was after we had spent the day watching the Grand Prix. We had general admission tickets so that meant a lot of walking (I put in 18k steps that day according to my watch) and I was pretty wiped out by the time we got back to Liège. Nevertheless, I gathered my camera gear and went out around 10 PM to see what I could find.
I’ve never photographed a railway station, but the building was huge and finding compositions required a lot of walking around. I found some cool shots that night however, I wish I had spent a little bit more time and setup the tripod. Instead, I spent most of my time with just my 24-70 handheld. Thank god for image stabilization!
The next morning, I set out just before sunrise (figuring that the architecture was more interesting when activated by light than trying to shoot it at blue hour). Feeling pretty tired from the prior day, I grabbed some coffee at the station cafe before getting going.
The night before told me that exploring the north end of the building was probably the best place to start. I trekked out onto the bridge overlooking the station (itself a very cool structure) and began looking for shots.
At some point colorful panels were installed in the roof structure, that project the colors of the Belgian flag across the station.
Abstract patterns found in the Liège-Guillemins
With the sweeping concrete forms and constantly interesting light-play throughout the day, I could have spent days shooting here... Unfortunately, I only had a few hours to take photos before we had to hit the road but hopefully someday I’ll have the opportunity to come back.
For this trip I tried to minimize my weight as much as possible while still having enough focal range to get good coverage. I did pretty well with my two zooms (24-70 & 70-200) and two tilt-shift lenses (24mm & 17mm) but of all the Belgian sights, this was the one I would have made use of my 15-35 zoom and 50mm tilt-shift. But the "lens" I most missed here was the one on my drone. Perhaps with more time to explore I could find some good vantage points to capture an overall of the building, however I’m pretty sure an aerial perspective would’ve been the way to go.
I haven’t had this much fun shooting a single building in a long time… What a great space to explore with a camera!
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