Ashley Van Buren, a writer and producer working in film, theater, and digital video, started taking subway photographs in 2011 and posting them on Tumblr at If You See Something, Say Something, named after the MTA‘s citizen antiterrorism campaign in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
The first one she remembers posting showed the Washington Square Park piano guy moving his piano on the subway:
Ashley named her subway photography project Subway Stories after a 1997 anthology of short films by 10 directors including her former boss, Jonathan Demme.
She talks about subway photography as a ”passive experience of creativity“:
I meditated for several years, twice a day for 20 minutes. My meditation teacher said, “Oh, you know, meditate on the subway.” And I was like, “That’s my best time to engage with people to take pictures. I’m not ruining that.“ I did try it a few times, but it drove me insane.
Instead, she says, it is more like daydreaming.
When I was a kid, I would daydream in class and I’d think about stories I wanted to write or visual pictures I saw kind of coming together. It’s not unlike that, except like the pictures are actually happening right in front of me… The story’s being produced for you, but at the same time, you’re the one that’s finding that magic second of interaction.
Other pictures we discussed include a woman reading Eat Pray Love:
A pair of sparkly shoes:
An older woman, lost in thought
Miss Havisham, Grey Gardens
Also mentioned:
- Wikipedia, Colin Huggins aka The Washington Square Park piano guy
- Subway Stories (1997)
- Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958)
- Wikipedia, Nelson Sullivan
- Emily Colucci, Vice, Remembering New York’s Downtown Documentarian Nelson Sullivan
I interviewed Ashley on June 1, 2023.