Walker Evans’ Subway Portraits Response

I think Evans’ approach was very effective and successful as it can clearly be seen in the photos he took.  It shows the raw emotion of everyday subway riders that are being transported from point A to point B.  Riding on the subway is a repetitive and boring process, its main purpose is to get from one place to another in the shortest amount of time possible.  The subway is also a place of unforeseeable events and that anything can happen at any time.  There is that look of fear in the subway riders in the photos taken by Evans, because the subway environment always created a sense of fear for the riders, it’s an environment in which you are sharing with a stranger and you don’t know what they are capable of.  Evans captures this emotion perfectly, in a candid and clandestine way.  So to answer the question of what I think of Evans’ approach, I think it was very effective and successful as it is shown in the results.  As for the similarities to today’s subway riders’ expressions, I do think they are similar judging by the photos, in the photos, the riders stare off into space as they are in the train and today is oddly similar, with the exception of the riders have their phones and kindles in their hands to keep them occupy instead of the newspaper.