Benjamin
Halperin.
The subway is New York City’s great equalizer. Everyone has to deal with its stench and heat. Regardless of class, race, and status, everyone that rides it has a common experience. This is wholly different from the world above it. The world above the subway is divided in so many ways. All people that ride the subway experience the unique ecosystem that exists under the surface. In my sustained investigation, I want to capture the people of this ecosystem. I wanted to capture the phenomenon often seen of the people on the subway. People are in their own world. They are absorbed in what is important to them, yet they seem to interact, some directly and others indirectly.
Throughout my sustained investigation, the way I approached people on the subway has changed. Going into it, I saw the riders as one group. In my eyes, they acted as one group. This can be seen in the first photographs of my sustained investigation. They are of larger groups of people with less of a focus on the individual. However, as I rode the subway more for this project, I started to become more focused on the individual. My latter photos in the sustained investigation focus on the people riding the subway.
