Bruce Davidson's vivid exploration of New York's subway system in the 1980s is an epoch-defining series that marked the photographer's shift from black and white to colour.
“If I am looking for a story at all, it is in my relationship to the subject — the story that tells me, rather than that I tell” writes Bruce Davidson, who was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame on November 1, 2019.
The photographer’s critically acclaimed photo essay and book project, Subway, was “a voyage of discovery” for the American photographer; the result of half a decade spent exploring the ominous reaches of the subway system in the 1980s. Both a captivating study of light and color and a historical document of an elemental part of New York, Subway captures the many faces of the underbelly of this city.
"I wanted to transform the subway from its dark, degrading, and impersonal reality into images that open up our experience again to the color, sensuality, and vitality of the individual souls that ride it each day"
First Edition 1987
