Two people on trains, wandering in thought. The woman was traveling in Sri Lanka during the civil war that was ravaging the north of that small, tear-drop shaped country. Our train was chugging along toward the peaceful south, running down the coast from Colombo, the capital, to Matara, the island nation's southern-most tip. The window bestowed glimpses of tropical ocean and small fishing villages with nets strung to dry and markets of glistening fish laid in wicker baskets.
The view from the NY subway is far less picturesque, but vibrant and filthy and full of its own garish industrial charm. The man was riding, utterly still, as if there were no one else in the car.
There is something about trains that enhances solitude and contemplation and permits a certain privacy. The anonymity, the selective quiet, backed by the rumble of the rails, the uncaring crowd of strangers. As for the privacy, though, I invaded it when I stole both these photos, lured by the beauty of the people and a compelling sense of their (perhaps melancholic) aloneless. And by the light, which was perfect in both shots: the setting summer sun through the window in Sri Lanka and the harsh subway glare, perhaps at night, although that underground maze betrays no hint of time of day.
The NYC system, with 665 miles of tracks, is more than six times longer than the 109-mile trip that spans half the length of Sri Lanka.
These are such beautiful touching portraits. I agree there is some special magic about trains. One of the things I miss about NYC is the opportunity to study strangers in the subway. I still have some of my photographs from studying at Pratt in Brooklyn. One I treasure is a young black man holding his sleeping son, very relaxed, not even bothering to glance at me as I photographed them. Now I wonder at daring to be intrusive. When photographing people on the street, in the park or in a cafe and felt I needed to ask permission , in the Subway I felt invisible.
Growing up for the first one-sixth of my life in NYC I rode countless subways, enjoyed the illusory solitude, and felt utterly safe. I remember once being on the train from Albany to NYC with my mother (of blessed memory -- she died last year at the age of 100). On this trip, one lady with a gigantic big mouth told loud boring stories for 2 1/2 hours straight. No one could get her to shut up. On a honeymoon train trip from Nogales to Mazatlan in 1974, the train ran breathtakingly fast on curves as well as straightaways, tossing us from wall to wall in the tiny sleeper car. and scaring the living hell out of me.