Hua Lamphong, known more formally as the Bangkok Train Station, is the city’s main railway station, the terminus of lines headed north, south and east through Thailand and for the city’s mass transit system. It also is the end of the line for slower “excursion” trains into the countryside, popular with tourists and photographers. “I feel like it’s a different side of Bangkok that you see in the train station, it’s not as fast paced as it is in the city,” Narula says.
Narula started shooting at Hua Lamphong four years ago, hopping from platform to platform looking for people to photograph. But it wasn’t until April that he “saw the light” on Platform 10, where passengers board a train that winds 426 miles north to Chiang Mai. While shooting early one overcast morning, Narula noticed how the light reflected off the train and platform. The haze of diesel smoke and light gave the scene a film noir quality. Narula found it magical, and utterly unique. “I was running across platforms and looking to see if I could get the same thing at a different time of day on a different platform with a different train and I couldn’t,” he says.