HW 5: Subway Portraits

It’s amazing and unique how Walker Evans came up with an idea of hiding the camera under his coat to capture people in the subway lost in their own thoughts and moods. It’s interesting to think about different people’s everyday routines, where they all go, what they do and who they are. Evans made a good decision keeping everyday commuters unaware of him taking photographs because when we all see a camera we naturally pose hiding our true face expressions and this would ruin the whole point of his style of photography. Walker Evans managed to capture the passengers on the NYC subway minding their own business in these unguarded moments, displaying a range of human emotions. He has created unposed portraits.
I’m my opinion, not much has changed from the time Evans took these photographs. Nowadays, the majority travels in the subway train with the same face expression which usually makes others feel like they don’t want to be bothered. We all use the subway rushing to get to our destinations, at the same time unwittingly people-watching.

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