GBSG
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NY Times Interview •
Underground Exhibition
17 October, 2006 • Express Train
Photography © Travis Ruse • photoblogs.org • listed
Photography © Travis Ruse • photoblogs.org • listed
GBSG
Photography © Travis Ruse • photoblogs.org • listed
yes, every-day-morning-feelings. Nice to study. Don´t look much different over here.
Exactly... every-day-morning-feelings! Great capture.
Once upon a time I was engaged in something called "photo therapy", a form of art therapy, in which the patient would be given a photograph and asked to describe the scene and feelings it invoked. Any one of your photographs would be interesting exercise on many levels.
First of all, if you compare your photo collection with similar photographs from another era, you'd be able to notice differences in body language, for example passengers would have been more formally dressed with more contained and formal postures.
I always thought it would be an interesting exercise to give one of your photos to a class of students studying psychology, sociology or even anthropology. What questions would arise, or what conclusions could be made?
I've been thinking for awhile about the use of iPods in public. It can be a way to keep yourself occupied during a long and boring commute. But it also serves to disconnect you from from personal contact. The sad thing I see in your photos is that very, very few people seem to be engaging in human contact of any nature (except for those who are obviously family or personal friends). The sheer numbers of people preclude that I suppose. Is the same true for walking down the street? In restaurants or public spaces?
This photo seems very sad and isolated to me. I know new Yorkers defend their way of life and I'd love for someone to explain how this all works. How does this lifestyle work for you? Under what circumstances would you engage a stranger in conversation?
Interesting. I'm more upset about all the paper on the floor than I am about the lack of connection between the people. (But then, I'm a New Yorker.) And my second thought was: that's an empty train, this shot couldn't have been taken at rush hour. (Was it?)
About iPods: I'm not sure they disconnect people from making contact with others much more than, say, a book. I don't have an iPod, but I am usually reading something on the subway. It's pretty much the same thing, I don't talk to people when I'm reading. (And they better not talk to me -- can't they see I'm reading?)
As for talking to strangers (Mama said not to!), I think New Yorkers tend to respond to rather than initiate conversations with people they don't know. There are a lot of tourists in this city, they often stop people to ask directions, questions, etc. Most NYers are more than willing to answer the questions and will even chat a bit under those circumstances. I don't know, it seems to me that people are quite often talking to each other. But the subway is definitely not one of the places where conversations with strangers would tend to take place. Mostly because everbody has to get somewhere, that's why they're on the subway. And for many people, the morning/evening commute is the only time during the day that they have the opportunity to be "alone." So the photo is isolated, yes, but I don't see it as sad. It's a complicated thing to exlpain.
One glance at the "missed connections" page on Craigslist / NY will reveal dozens of posts from people who had a silent, flirtatious moment on the subway with another person and for various reasons (cowardice and headphones prevail) neither said anything. It's harder than you'd think to meet people here - unless you love bars. Glory goes to the gutsy and the quick-thinkers.
But, true, the "only place I can be alone" concept; It's the best argument there is for not wiring the tunnels for cell phones. We can all just get along, in peace.
well but this is not just a New York phenomenon. If you may have a look to my pictures from Berlin you can see its not so much different. Colors are different. rooms and how trains look is different. But people seems to be much more similar as we think. Maybe.
My thoughts: we are all PASSengers. Passing bye. the one next to us is not the reason and not our destination. No relationship is going on. Just using the same train. Maybe every morning. We got musicians coming into the trains and playing some music or making jokes. Then sometimes we laugh together.
nice pic...
coming from a native new yorker... the thing that stands out to me is that many have become indifferent to the visual pollution of litter. the lack of consideration and flat out animal behavior of those that decide their trash needs to be out of their possession immediately is appalling. it is a big passive-aggressive "F YOU" to the majority of people that try to be good. there is a garbage can every 50 feet in the subway but yet some seem to not have the energy to hold on to those heavy pieces of paper for an extra 5 seconds.
many have become apathetic to this and other daily jabs at quality of life occurrences and would rather throw their earphones on and ignore... once in a while you will witness someone confronting someone that has just thrown their soda can or lunch remains under the seat... it is sad to watch... it is usually rebutted with anger and defensiveness that can escalate out of hand... the offender sometimes will merely say something to the affect of "you go ahead and throw it out" or "mind your business."
there are people that will dismiss such annoyances by claiming "it's new york." but that is a lot of the reason people do zone out. to some, it is a necessity to not pay attention to these blood pressure elevating occurrences. and to those that say they don't even notice the garbage or the other unlawful events, i say they have just built up a wall in order to get through the day... (or they moved to ny in adulthood and somehow expected such things and think it is part of the charm).
there is a lot to say about surroundings dictating how the people that fill them feel... when ny came out with the new subway cars a number of years ago they remained clean and the windows were scratch free for a good amount of time.... you actually witnessed people smiling and looking around at all the new details... you even witnessed strangers talking about them for a while... but hat wore off and people started to treat them like the previous generation of subway cars...
-tkny
Terrific comments which really gave me a perspective on your daily commutes. You're absolutely correct- I stopped and asked myself how I would feel if there were 15 people stuffed in my car in the morning and evening. I sure wouldn't want to be chatty because as you've pointed out I use that time in the morning to quietly map out my day, and in the evening to decompress before the hub bub of dinnertime and family.
What suprised me was the almost universal reaction to the trash in the photo. I guess the point being that you all have to share the space as best you can, but draw the line at trashing the space you share. Disrespect for the space becomes a problem.
It lso speaks to the thought that it's "somebody else's job" to clean up/ fix up etc. We don't have that luxury in rural areas because we do not have the infrastructure of state/county and local labor forces to do those jobs - we have to take personal resposibility for them - even the Fire Departments are volunteer. Most everything gets done with volunteer effort. Families or small companies adopt a stretch of highway and regularly walk the roadways and clean up the litter. How about if say, regular commuters from yesterdays station banded together and scraped and painted that ceiling? How radical is that idea? It would probably be so radical an effort that you'd make the New York Times!
Well I don't like thispicture so much, but it's some weeks I'm watching this photoblog quite daily and I decided to leave a comment: It's one of the most original photoblog that I found searching into photoblogs.org and It's impressive that you'd been shooting since 2004 and you still can find new subjects for your photos, watching you pics has made me view in a different way the hours I spend on the underground (I live in Milan and use undergorund and busses everyday to go to my university), maybe the best thing on you photo is that you give an idea of what a city like New York is, particulary who and how newyorkers are.
Wow. I have never seen such long comments on a photoblog. Interesting, too. Great.
For real. This shot must strike a nerve w/ NY subway riders. Great shot. Looks almost staged. Considering the lighting probably isn't stellar and the train is moving, nice picture.
Amazing photo, I got to return to NYC soon to shoot. There is so much there!
A little more on garbage underground: I was in Paris during the first Gulf war back in 90, and as they were concerned about bombing in the underground one of the steps taken was to remove all garbage cans. To prepare for the expected piles of garbage the Metro hired many additional employees to the clean the stations. Surprising thing happened. There was less garbage than ever. Turns out everyone took their garbage home and the stations ended up cleaner that ever.
I think the NCY trains are pretty litter free considering the amount of traffic we see. This is the most litter you'll find in any of the images on this site. And this appears to have come all from one person.
I'm fascinated how this image elicited so many thoughts. This is one of those images that on its own is not that riveting. But taken in context of the goals of this project, "what I saw on the train today", its daily grind feel strikes a tone of familiarity (even if you’ve never taken the subway). We can probably all find a person we identify with in the image. Or maybe not. When I edit images at night I usually go to the most striking image, scenes like this can easily get missed. This images strength is in the experiences the viewer brings to it. But isn't that true of all photography?
And thanks for all the incredibly wonderful comments. What a great dialogue!
Travis
Yes!
This is the NYC subway. Of all your photos, this takes me back to my old commute with the most speed and accuracy.
Given the uniformity of the size and shape of the papers on the floor, I think it looks like the lottery numbers were called moments before this photo was taken and none of these people had a winning ticket.