The Cheery Tinsel and the Dismal Spooky Crowd

Photo date: December 4, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Terminal in New York.  This is a photo with an astonishing contrast, which you can only appreciate if you right-click on the photo to view it at full resolution.  At the top we see some cheerful, colorful Christmas tinsel. But below we see a dark, dismal-looking crowd that seems to have had almost all color drained from it (even though I did nothing to adjust this photo).  Looking closely at the crowd, it's almost as if I can see some ghostly-looking things floating about, but I can see no clear examples of a typical human face. 

You could try to explain this as just as some blurred image, but such an idea is contradicted by the fact that I can very clearly read the small words "passage subway" at the top of the photo.