When the doors close there is a split second before the train starts moving. Soon, the long thin tube, full of human souls, is being propelled through long gloomy tunnels deep beneath the city. People are all packed tightly together in the carriages, and yet, as with all of us, they are ultimately and inevitably, alone in space and time. The blink of an eye in the great plan of life, it is an attractive metaphor for our journey through life.
It is here in this subterranean early morning rush hour that street photographer Andre D Wagner found his inspiration.
As he travelled to and from his work in Manhattan and his home in Brooklyn on the J train, Wagner had the idea of compiling a photographic record of his journeys. For three years, as he made these trips, he shot those who filled the New York underground as they journeyed with him. The outcome is a powerful log, and fascinating volume of 62 photographs of his fellow travellers selected and sequenced by the photographer.
‘Here For The Ride’ was published in 2017 by Creative Future, Denmark – ISBN :978-87-996909-1-6 – a brilliant project which is simple, yet captivating.
From the get go we enjoy the photographic ride with the strangers who populate Wagner’s book.
Copyright © Andre Wagner
It opens with a waiting train. A bored looking, world-weary black woman glances from a side window– there is a number 2363. Externally, The metallic carriage sports the the flag of the United States, a symbol of the cultural milieu the young lady is travelling through. Her soon-to-set-off journey ahead of her is one we can only speculate about. She is either heading downtown to work, or, fatigued, heading home after a hard day’s graft?
Personally, this is one of my own favourites from the book. It stands as a pretty good mirror for all those early morning journeys we have all made to our place of labour, or that weary, glazed, countenance we all share at the end of yet another hard shift. A headlong journey we are all on as we, hopefully, navigate our way through life.
A photographic trip Wagner captures as visual sociology set around his subjects as they head for school, rush to their workplace, cross the city for a meeting, or an appointment. Meanwhile, they, disinterestedly, browse their newspapers, sleep, laugh, speak, daydream.
Whatever they do to pass the time or wherever they are migrating too, their fate momentarily crosses with street photographer Andre Wagner. His goal to record this existential heartbeat in the lives of the strangers he shares these journeys with.
Copyright © Andre Wagner
In motion over the duration of the three year project we discover a cocky young black kid and his friends on their way to school (presumably), page 17. A dramatic and, I think, great shot of a lady, lost in a forest of bodies glancing backward, page 21. A man in a ski mask page 40 – a fleeing bank robber perhaps – crushed into a packed carriage, hiding among the crowds as the cops arrive on the platform and sprint toward his carriage just as the doors close and the train takes off. Actually, I have no doubt the man is quite innocent and just one of the many eccentrics who ride the New York subway, hardly given a second glance by those who regularly travel the trains.
Copyright © Andre Wagner
The genius of this project, however, is in how Wagner captures the moment with a sense of emotion. The drama of the early morning rush hour, the anxiety on the faces of some, the laughter, the smiling kids, the sleeping kids and, always, those moments of sweet tenderness. A woman keeping a child amused in a near empty carriage page 40 or lovers entangled in a warm, loving embrace and kiss on the platform page 46.
Copyright © Andre Wagner
But there are other subtle and symbolic shots that catch us thinking in a deeper more profound manner. The young man looking out across the rails from his carriage on pages 78 and 79, a great double page photograph, looking out on a grey city backdrop of residential tower blocks. Deep in thought the young man is perhaps cogitating about where he is, where he wants to be, how his life is going, where he wants it to go, what he can control, what he can’t control. Those aspects of life that haunt us all as we trek through the everyday.
It is a meditative shot of a young man considering his existential trajectory through the world as he moves point to point. A young man in the moment of becoming…what…we don’t know yet…that is for the future. For now he is doing what he thinks is right, making decisions that will ultimately congregate around his success, or conspire in his eventual downfall and tragedy. Who knows?
Looking for something to put on your Christmas list? Honestly? Well, this is it! But it’s not for the coffee table, it’s for being read, studied, discussed.
Visit Andre Wagner’s website for more.
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