Subway Portrait 1938 - 1941

This black and white photograph, Subway Portrait, was taken by Walker Evans. It captures two people travelling on the subway. The grainy texture gives it this incredible immediacy, as though Evans simply grabbed the shot while hurrying somewhere else. The composition is interesting, the man is reading, a window onto the world. It makes me think about the art of looking and being looked at. There is something so human about the photograph, something so real. The man's expression is quite hard to read, and the woman stares straight ahead. I think the focus on the subjects' faces really makes the viewer connect with them on a deeper level. Evans’s work has been compared to that of artists like Eugène Atget, who documented the streets of Paris with a similar sense of detachment and observation. I think it is interesting how these different artists were creating pictures that spoke to something bigger than themselves.