The Subway Pictures

Peter, Peter & Billy Collins

ISBN 10: 1400062845 / ISBN 13: 9781400062843

Published by Random House, NY, 2004

About this Item

A bright, crisp copy. Edges of boards are lightly rubbed. ; 1.2 x 9.3 x 9.1 Inches; 145 pages.

Seller Inventory # 182837

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Subway Pictures
• Publisher: Random House, NY
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1400062845
• ISBN 13: 9781400062843
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+
• Weight: 1.65 pounds
• Seller catalogs:
  • Photography

About this title

Synopsis

In The Subway Pictures, Peter Peter shares his extraordinary images of life on the move, capturing “ordinary” New Yorkers in a remarkable give-and-take with their public surroundings. As Billy Collins writes in his Foreword, “Each of these images is a visual report from underground, the testimony of an optical Virgil bringing us news of the travelers below, momentarily stopped figures in the nonstop shuttling that goes on beneath the concrete skin of the city.”
In the wake of September 11, Peter found the heart of New York City in the subterranean world through which he rode nearly every day for the next three years. “It was like being carried along on a river of whispering signs and symbols,” he writes. “Travelers suspended in contemplation by the steady rhythm of stop-and-go seemed like speechless souls from a different dimension. The scene reshuffled at each stop and every now and then the elements would slip into a visual story.”
In the seventy-seven candid color pictures culled from the thousands Peter snapped with his basic 3 megapixel camera, the magic is everywhere. Whether we are looking at a very tall man crocheting with incredible concentration, someone flamboyantly stretching on the platform, or a Jackie Collins look-alike applying makeup, the world that comes across is vibrantly human and defiantly unself-conscious. Published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the opening of the fabled New York City subway system, The Subway Pictures is an unforgettable tribute to the individuality of all those who ride underground in New York, and to every urban American.

About the Author

PETER PETER was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, just in time to witness the 1968 Russian invasion. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, he moved to England to pursue photography. He lives in New York City with his wife, Helen, a native New Yorker.