Tram Central, Lisbon by Alantherock: Where the Trams Stand Still

Tram Central, Lisbon by Alantherock is a photography print of Lisbon's yellow trams standing inside their depot, parked in a row and every one of them facing the camera. It is the one view of these trams the city itself does not offer. On the street they are always moving, always full, always photographed from the pavement as they pass. Here they are still, empty, and lined up with nowhere to be yet.

Tram Central, Lisbon is an original photograph by Alan Pedersen, who works as Alantherock, taken inside a tram depot in Lisbon, Portugal. NOKUKO sells it as a photo print on Matt Enhanced paper (230 g), signed by Alan Pedersen, in three landscape sizes: 40x30 cm, 70x50 cm and 80x60 cm. The frame is not included.

The Trams Seen From Where They Rest

The photograph was taken from the tracks, inside the shed, looking along the rails at the trams. Every tram faces the same way, nose-on to the camera, and the rails run from the bottom edge of the picture straight into them. You stand where a tram would stand, on its own line, at the point where the depot opens onto the street.

Seven trams can be made out, all in Lisbon's yellow, the last of them cut off by the right edge of the frame. Between the rails the floor is cut open into long pits with small lamps set along their edges, which is what lets someone stand underneath a tram and work on it. That one detail tells you where you are. This is not a stop and not a street. It is the place the trams come back to at the end of the day, and the place they leave from.

The description that travels with the print puts it simply: a new set of wagons prepares to serve. Nothing in the picture is moving yet. All of the movement is ahead of it.

One Lamp Lit, One Person Standing

Two things in the picture are not at rest. One tram has its headlight on. It is the plain one near the left of the row, with no advertisement along its side and red and white stripes at its corners, and its single lamp is the only light switched on anywhere in the shed. It is the one sign that one of these trams is about to go. Between it and the first tram stands a single figure in dark blue, the only person in the photograph, small against the carriages.

Everything else waits. The other trams carry their advertisements as they would on the street, one of them a bottle, another the words The Authentic across its flank, and a route number sits in the window of the tram at the far right. On the left a brick wall with arched windows runs the length of the shed. Overhead the roof is a lattice of iron trusses with skylights set into it and pipes painted red running across, and the daylight comes down through the roof and in through the wall of windows behind the trams, so that the light is behind them and the floor in front of them is bright. It is a working building, photographed as it is, and the trams are its whole reason for being.

Lisbon in Two Photographs

This is the second piece of Lisbon in Alan Pedersen's photography at NOKUKO, and it belongs beside the first. Tiles of Lisboa by Alantherock gathers dozens of photographs of the city's Azulejo tiles into one grid that exists on no wall in the city. Tram Central does something similar with the other thing Lisbon is known for: it takes the trams and shows them where they are never seen, indoors and at rest. Both prints are Lisbon seen from the side the postcards leave out. One of the product photographs hangs the two together on a single wall, and they sit well there, the yellow of the trams against the blues and greens of the tiles.

A photograph of a tram in motion tells you what the tram is for. This one tells you what it takes. The shed, the pits, the lamp coming on, the one person on the floor: the picture holds the part of the story that happens before anyone gets on.

At 80x60 cm the trusses and the lettering on the trams come through clearly. At 40x30 cm it reads as a single warm shape of yellow and iron, which is how it would catch you from across a room.

About Tram Central, Lisbon

What is Tram Central, Lisbon printed on?
It is a photo print on Matt Enhanced paper (230 g), the paper NOKUKO uses for its photography prints, and each print is signed by Alan Pedersen. The frame shown in the product photographs is for illustration and is not included.

Which sizes is Tram Central, Lisbon available in?
Three landscape sizes: 40x30 cm, 70x50 cm and 80x60 cm. The photograph is wider than it is tall, so it suits a wall above a desk, a sideboard or a sofa rather than a narrow space.

Are there different editions or colour versions of Tram Central, Lisbon?
No. It is one photograph in one version, offered in the three sizes. There are no colour editions.

Is Tram Central, Lisbon a limited edition, and is it signed?
It is not a limited edition. It is an open edition photo print and is not one of the eight limited editions NOKUKO holds. Each print is signed by Alan Pedersen, who works as Alantherock. No certificate of authenticity is issued, because certificates accompany NOKUKO's original works rather than its prints.