A Taxi Night Fleet At Oslo’s Central Station

I took this frame at a moment of pure symmetry and friction. The way taxi lines form outside Oslo Central Station at night—almost militaristic in their discipline, yet each vehicle pulsing with its own colour rhythm—felt like an urban ballet set to the low hum of idling engines and the soft scuff of rubber on wet cobblestones.

Technically, night shots like this are unforgiving. The cold light from the LEDs clashes sharply with the warmth of the taillights and the overhead sodium vapour glow, which is why I resisted neutralising the colour balance too much. The visual tension between the icy blue reflected on the left and the bleeding red tones on the right creates a kind of tonal polarity that serves the scene: cold efficiency meets human impatience.

The frame is structured around leading lines and verticals—columns and lamp posts create a sense of architecture and containment. I waited for just the right amount of frontal spacing between vehicles before releasing the shutter; too early, and they’d blur into a single mass; too late, and the tension would be lost. The wide focal length allowed the frame to hold the architectural ceiling while still letting the road dominate.

Focus was a technical challenge in low light, but I opted for a slightly deeper depth of field than I usually would at night, forcing myself to keep ISO manageable and shutter fast enough to freeze motion. The result is a detailed rendering of the cobblestones—almost tactile—and a sense of texture that grounds the chaos in something ancient and tactile. These stones have seen centuries, yet here they are, lit by the impatient rhythm of ride-hailing modernity.

Street photography at this hour often romanticises the loneliness or mystery of night. But in this image, I wanted the viewer to feel the crowd, the repetition, the wait. Not lonely at all. Just endlessly in motion.