based in London, UK
In this series I was interested in photographing the spaces between people and the people's relationship to each other in this space..
The tube at rush hour is not exactly a pleasant experience, but it is fascinating from an observational perspective. I worked at the BBC on a contract for some time. I took the central line to work everyday like many people do. Being from New York I was astonished at the lack of conscious personal contact afforded on the Underground. In fact people go out of their way to psychologically seal themselves in their own space. The closer physically, the more distant psychologically. I didn’t wish to be noticed while photographing because I didn’t want to affect the atmosphere I was documenting. I decided to embark on a visual exploration of this space using a 35mm rangefinder camera with a cable release. The project was an exercise in observationally photographing while not looking through the viewfinder.
Since completeing the project I was made aware of Michael Haenke's film [Code Inconnu...] which
features a shell shocked war photographer returning to Paris. He begins to make photographs of
people on the Metro much in the same way, though he focuses on their faces and uses a large SLR
camera. We could attribute both these attempts to the photographs made in the 50s by Walker Evans.
In my series I was interested in photographing the spaces between people and the people's
relationship to each other and the space rather than the passengers as individuals.
