Bruce Davidson: Subway

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Born in 1933 near Chicago, Davidson’s subjects have including the Civil Rights Movement in the early ’60s, a Brooklyn gang, Spanish Harlem, circus performers, and a 5-year project on New York’s subway system in the gritty ‘80s.

In this edition of classic photographic literature, a sequence of 118 images move the viewer through a landscape at times menacing, and at other times lyrical, soulful, and satiric. Speaking to us about how he views the project today, Davidson reiterates this sentiment: “I feel that there was a passion and a purpose to photographing in the subway. Dustjacket wonderful fresh with slightest trace of use, but with no tears, no missing parts and no remarkable flaws or defects.His glowing skin tone seemed to match the chains around his neck, which James Agee would often refer to as ‘badges of being. In transforming the grim, abusive, violent, and yet often serene reality of the subway into a language of color, I see the subway as a metaphor for the world in which we live today. The brilliant flash, combined with fluorescent lighting, intense colors and Davidson's probing vision, produced images that are dramatic and at times surreal. Many were willing, enthusiastic even, about showcasing the realities of the subway system, but, with his expensive camera slung round his neck, Davidson also fell victim to attacks and muggings. A woman named Kathy, staring at herself in a cigarette machine in one of his most famous photographs, shot herself with a shotgun.

Il s'agit là d'un très beau et grand livre de Bruce Davidson qui ravira les amateurs de beaux livres photos. In today’s divided society—suffering from an epidemic of loneliness—these photographs are a reminder of the possibility and power of human connection. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.Seeking to uncover beauty that habitually goes unnoticed, Subway was Davidson’s first documentary series shot in color.