2021 Document photography: Subway
The Subway is the second big project I did after Boston. This is a portrait-centric project aimed at capturing the unique conditions of people within the environment of the subway area. This project is my re-creation with the subway as the theme after absorbing the lack of connection between the work and the theme in the previous project and strengthening it. The main purpose is to capture the different expressions of different people on the subway. Of course, the subway here is not just a single train space, but also includes concepts such as platforms, halls, and stairs that can evoke people’s memories.
I chose the subway as the central theme of this project because I have a personal affinity for this mode of transportation. As a person from Shanghai, the subway was an integral part of my daily commuting experience that I couldn’t easily abandon. In contrast, in Boston, the subway was almost the only feasible form of public transportation. At that time, public bikes were prohibitively expensive, and buses were not only infrequent—running roughly every 30-45 minutes—but also unreliable in terms of punctuality. (I can’t vouch for the exact timing, as I hardly ever used buses in Boston, resorting mostly to shuttle buses during subway downtimes.) Unlike the crowded, stand-dominated subways of Shanghai, Boston’s subway offered a more relaxed ambiance, Seats were generally available unless it was during rush hours, and this spacious environment revealed expressions of relaxation on passengers’ faces that I felt were well worth capturing.
Unlike Boston, this project is something I’m quite pleased with. Therefore, I’ve decided to release it in two parts. You can either view the remastered version here, or watch the original version in the next page.
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