Rebecca Davis was a video producer for the New York Daily News in 2012 when she started taking candid photographs on the subway.
This was the first one that she posted on her Instagram:
She used Hipstamatic filters. She started a Tumblr with the subdomain newyorkunderground. She turned the year’s subway photographs into a video called Commuters:
The form of Commuters was inspired by the user interface of the iPhone that she used to take them:
Often I would sit across from someone and maybe take like 10 or 12 frames until I captured in the photo tradition what would be considered the “decisive moment…”.
But I was realizing as I went back into my photo gallery to look and pick the photos at the end of a day that there was this flipbook effect as I would run through them.
Rebecca’s subway photography practice changed when she left the Daily News, which sent her around the city all day, for the Today Show, which meant she was only commuting to Rockefeller Center, and during rush hour.
When we spoke back in 2023, Rebecca was in Mexico City, riding in its mujeres-only metro cars and preparing to release Join or Die, a documentary that she directed and produced with her brother, Pete. The film explores the ideas of social scientist Robert Putnam, who saw Americans’ propensity to join organizations as an essential component of a democratic society.
Watching Join or Die on Netflix recently, I thought back to our conversation about the photographs we talked about, and the attention they pay to isolation and connection:
You can see what becomes of the kissing couple in the Commuters video.
This last solo portrait doesn’t feel lonely — it feels orange.
Rebecca isn’t posting as often these days, but you can follow her on Instagram.
I interviewed Rebecca on June 12, 2023.