Customer Reviews

Bruce Davidson: Subway

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In 1980, Bruce Davidson began to photograph the New York subway system. He first started photographing in Black and White and then decided that the project required color. Davidson generally asked permission before photographing someone -- ironically the one notable exception was a man Davidson did not know was blind. It is one of my favorite images (p. 54). He offered to send them a print of the picture. Yet most of the photographs do not appear posed. The breadth of life on the New York subway system is impressive. You will see beautiful women, daring and frightening young men, some violence, people dealing with crowded situations, lonely people, business people, elderly people, musicians, graffiti, people in love, street people, an arrest -- in short the full panoply of life in NYC. It's just wonderful. The images are a bit on the dark side which fits the subject. Davidson used a flash -- as this was necessary. Many of the images have too much flash but I did not find this to be more than a modest distraction.

The quality of reproduction is excellent. I learned about the variety of humanity below the ground in New York. The enterprise was not without risk. Someone stole one of Davidson's cameras. The book does not make the NY subway seem to be a safe place but certainly one where it's possible to genuinely connect with the humanity we all share.

Highly recommended.

As an amatuer photographer, this is one of my favorite books of all time. It beautifully captures Subway riders in their natural habitat, making outsiders look strikeingly out of place. This book will not disappoint.

American photographer Bruce Davidson was born in 1933 in Oak Park, Illinois to a single mother, who worked in a factory. At age 10, his mother built him a dark room in their basement and Davidson began taking photographs; as he was given the freedom to wander the streets of Oak Park alone. Soon after, he approached a local photographer who taught him the technical nuances of photography, in addition to lighting and printing skills. In his mid-teens, Davidson began to ride Chicago's elevated train system into the city, exploring neighborhoods and the Chicago Loop, observing wide varieties of people, and most importantly developing skills and interests that would be seen in his later photographic works. His works have always been on the leading edge of seeking out the sources of social unrest in the ghettos and in all the civil rights movements, and his ability to non-objectify the people he photographs has made him one of the most realistic of contemporary photographers.

In 1986 the original book SUBWAY was published by Aperture, a collection of images Davidson captured in the subways of New York, focusing on the 'outsiders of society more than the white collar commuters. That award winning book has since become unavailable and this current release is a re-print edition published by Aperture in September of 2011. It is well to examine these startling images again - and this edition adds 25 images not previously published. The gritty, seamy images found in this collection allow us to examine from a safe distance the seamier side of the subway riders. This documentation of another time - with characters who were active in the culture of New York's underground - reminds us that times have not changed all that much: perhaps the costumes and paraphernalia have altered but the discontent of the faces has not.

There is an informative introduction to the times and the topic by Fred Braithwaite and the book ends with an Afterword by the now deceased famous art critic Henry Geldzahler. Best to buy this edition new before it too goes out of print. It is a keepsake and an art piece. Grady Harp, November 11

I grew up in the Northeast in the 1970's and 1980's. These images remind me of my youth, riding the subways in Philadelphia. While inner cities these days have their fair share of crime, poverty, etc, these images are haunting and a stark reminder of what inner cities really looked like back then. It was a different world, a different time. While some of the images can be disturbing, they still convey a sense that life was simpler. I can easily get lost in this book for hours on a single image. I highly recommend this book for anyone into photography or the history of modern inner cities, hip-hop, and/or trains. To echo Fab 5 Freddy "Thank you Bruce Davidson." The most wonderful moments of my life are losing time staring at an open book, this book doesn't disappoint.