We see them everyday. But what do they actually see? What’s their story? Where are they going and where have they been?
Early december morning I found myself standing at grand central station waiting for the north bound train towards Connecticut. It was me and a few other souls waiting for the same train.
As time went by and the cold frosty air started to taw more and more people entered the platform. I ended up behind a group of older ladies and could glance over their shoulder and it got me thinking. I can see what’s right in front of us, but what do they see? I started to look around and the thought fueled my imagination and I started to think; here are a large group of people, we see them everywhere. Wherever we go we meet them. We share the same subway, sometimes we sit next to them while having lunch. Despite these intimate moments we usually have no idea who they are or what they see.
Where is she going? What does she see?
Where did they come from? Where are they going?
Living in New York City you see more people daily than most do in a month. The amount of individuals I have potential to interact with is gastronomical compared to other places in the world. Why is it then that my personal interactions are slim to say the least.
Imagine for a second that you are in the middle of your daily commute, the same commute you have been doing for months, maybe years. The difference this time is that you start seeking eye contact with the people you meet. Will you be successful? Probably not, but you make them more human. More real. You can create a persona for each and every individual that cross your path.
Beige coat, black fancy hat and perfectly made hair. Where is she going? What does she see during her commute?
Torn jeans, white t-shirt and large headphones. Who is he? Could he be the next large music icon and we don’t know it yet? What does he see?
Being able to, if even for a second, place yourself in someone else’s shoes intrigued me to start capturing moments of these strangers. The view is simply the stranger. Not always perfect focus, not always the same distance, but enough similarity to find that common theme.
The idea of placing yourself in someone else’s shoes, even for a split second. Their environment is usually defocused to represent the vague idea of us not knowing what they see. Yet, we can create the imaginary landscape of what we think they were going, where they came from and with enough creativity, who they might be.
For what it’s worth, our world today has become very self centered. There is not a time in history where we have been more focused on ourselves. We need this, that, it, them, him, her etc.
Our usage of social media of various sorts are mostly to create the illusion we always wished we had, or create the person we always wanted to become. When did we stop caring about the world around us? The people walking side by side daily.