| Another unexciting picture of a person riding Bart. I've been taking numerous pictures like these lately. I suppose they can all together be considered a photographic series. Not a very exciting series, honestly, but one I currently feel compelled to make. I see it as a passive series motivated by a reflexive compulsion that is not of my choosing. Why did I take the picture of this individual sitting by himself? I spend so much time on the Bart system now that I live in the east bay. I sit on the trains, I wait at the stations. Yesterday, for example, I spent nearly 2 hours of my life in the Bart system, just to go to Oakland to draw. I am compelled to see and make images of forms that catch my eye. And lately, since much of my life is spent on Bart, I find myself making these mundane, monotonous images. That being said, I do like certain things about them. People are quiet, they wait, playing on their devices, reading, napping, or staring blankly into space. They are typically solitary figures in my pictures. They seem often isolated, and sometimes appear deep in thought, sometimes sad. Anxiety can be found at the edges of their mask like expressions. If I'm lucky, I catch this. But what pleasure do I feel from looking at this series of images? It is like being tasked by Fate to perform a painfully uninteresting job, and then expecting to be thrilled about it. Seeing through the eyes of someone who isn't invited to the party, who missed the dance. The feeling of being imprisoned often overtakes me these days. Stuck in the confined, limited space of my life. The Bart seems to be a kind of incarceration, rolling me along in an inescapable box with the Others along for the ride. |
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