This was a very bad idea: I've stuck my boot heels in a subway grating three times so far this afternoon...

Note: I have no idea why, but this photo was published in a Nov 17, 2010 "How to Photograph" blog titled "How do I photograph fat people to make them look good?"

 

Moving into 2012, the photo was published in an undated (mid-Jul 2012) blog titled "Aurox wins 2012 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation." It was also published in a Sep 4, 2012 Hair Loss Blueprint blog (huh? where do people come up with these bizarre titles for blogs?) with the same caption and detailed otes that I had written on this Flickr page. And it was published in a Nov 14, 2012 blog titled "Thinning Hair Tips That Can Really Help You."

 

Moving into 2013, the photo was published in an Apr 10, 2013 blog titled "Learn To Control Blading With These Tips." It was also published in an Apr 13, 2013 blog titled "Tips To Stop Your Hair Loss." And it was in a Nov 19, 2013 blog titled "Manage Thinning Hair Now With These Tricks."

 

Moving into 2014, the photo was published in a March, 2014 blog titled "Avoid Suffering From Blading With These Tips."

 

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The streets were wet when I got up a few days ago, and the weather forecast called for rain throughout the day. Consequently, I decided to spend my half-hour of daily "photography time," during my lunch-break, down in the subway station, where I knew I could stay dry. Since I had a mid-afternoon appointment on 72nd Street, I decided that instead of photographing at my own local subway stop, I would take the train downtown and hunker down in a quiet corner to see what came my way. I found a quiet bench on the downtown side of the 72nd Street IRT line, and sat patiently to see what would happen across the tracks, on the uptown side... Later in the afternoon, when it was time to head back home, I spent half an hour sitting on the uptown side of the tracks, waiting to see how people were behaving across the way...

 

As is often the case, I got a consistent sense of solitude, isolation, wistfulness and even loneliness on the part of the subway riders I was observing; maybe the gloomy weather up above made them all pensive, or maybe that's the way they always are, when alone in the subway. Whatever the reason, there were only one or two cases where I saw people laughing, smiling, or chatting cheerfully with one another.

 

As with the last subway group that I shot at ISO 6400, there's a little bit of noise/graininess in these images -- but I decided to leave them that way. I did adjust the "hot spots" (areas over-exposed from the fluorescent lighting in the subway station) and "cold spots" (shadows and dark areas), and punched up the color a little bit. But aside from that, this is yet another view of the typical daytime scene on a typical NYC subway line...

 

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Over the years, I've seen various photos of the NYC subway "scene," usually in black-and-white format. But during a recent class on street photography at the NYC International Center of Photography (ICP), I saw lots and lots of terrific subway shots taken by my fellow classmates ... so I was inspired to start taking a few myself.

 

So far, I'm taking photos in color; I don't feel any need to make the scene look darker and grimier than it already is. To avoid disruption, and to avoid drawing attention to myself, I'm not using flash shots; but because of the relatively low level of lighting, I'm generally using an ISO setting of 800 or 1600 -- except for my most recent photos with my new Nikon D700, which are all shot at ISO 6400.

 

I may eventually use a small "pocket" digital camera, but the initial photos have been taken with my somewhat large, bulky Nikon D700 DSLR. If I'm photographing people on the other side of the tracks in a subway station, there's no problem holding up the camera, composing the shot, and taking it in full view of everyone -- indeed, hardly anyone pays attention to what's going on across the tracks, and most people are lost in their own little world, reading a book or listening to music. But if I'm taking photos inside a subway car, I normally set the camera lens to a wide angle (18mm) setting, point it in the general direction of the subject(s), and shoot without framing or composing.

 

So far it seems to be working ... we'll see how it goes...

Done