Today marks the one-year anniversary of posting one image every day from my commute. If you stuck it out and watched every day, I hope you found something worth the visit. I could go on and on about all the wonderful and not so wonderful things I learned and experienced with this exercise. Suffice to say I have a very different view of my commute now than I did before I started.
I chose these four images, one from each season (yes the seasonal changes are reflected underground), with the same criteria I used to edit all my other images. It was the mood I was in. I’ve noticed that I could tell what was going on in my head when I looked back at my daily edits. Some of the most popular images were ones I over looked the first time. It's funny how I fall out love with images pretty quickly. If you ask me which images I think are the most successful I'll probably answer the ones I just shot. I hope that's a reflection of the fact that I'm still learning and not that I have ADD.
So thanks for all the critiques, encouragement and ideas. I set out to try and reach other people around the globe in addition to citizens right here in the city. From the response I’ve received I think I've achieved that goal. It's been so wonderful to hear that this site has helped others get to know a little more about what it means to be resident of New York City. Thank you for sharing your stories and subway experiences.
Not sure what the next step is but I'll probably keep at it for the time being. One thing for sure is I'm going to take a little more time off now that this marathon is over. See below for details for a little R&R Friday night.
Thanks and see you underground!
Travis
Express Train news:
To celebrate the occasion I think a drink is in order. And what better place than the Subway Inn? Not many bars like this left in this town. If you've been looking for an excuse to stop in at the Inn, here it is. I'm going to shoot to get there at 9pm this Friday night. And yeah there is a subway stop 5 feet from the front door. Hope to see you there.
Travis, I just wanted to say that because of the NYC Photobloggers meetup at the Apple Store (I saw your presentation) I was inspired to pick up a DSLR camera and take on the subways as well. Your pictures inspired me in a way that nothing I've seen so far has. You were my motivation in getting over my fear of being seen as weird for shooting underground, and got me goign. In fact, when I asked you at the presentation if people hassled you on the train, and you told me "Nope... People are in their own little world," that was all I needed.
Since then, I've taken hundreds of pictures on trains, and people keep telling me how much they love the pictures I take. I wouldn't be there without you, and I owe any praise I get because of my work to you specifically. I'm not as bold with people as you are, but you surely went to great lengths in opening my eyes to what was right in front of me all along.
If you could find the time, I'd love it if you would stop by my site and tell me what you think of my stuff. Hopefully you'll hang around for a bit and offer some advice because, as far as I'm concerned, you're simply amazing with a camera and a MetroCard.
Thanks enormously,
Vinny
Travis, the photo top left with two guys wither side of the pole was the first photo I saw from you. I saw it in another blog and came here looking for others. Thanks for the photos, they are fantastic.
From Romania, happy anniversary Travis! I hope that in one way or another you will continue your amazing underground project, because it is such an inspiration to me, and as I can see, to many others...
Thank You, from a latecomer, who still views them all now and then. I also visit other such sites now, although yours is still the original and best as far as I am concerned.
A goal well achieved! Congrats.
Congratulations! Even though your photography is very different from what I shoot, I've always thoroughly enjoyed your work here and found it utterly fascinating! I'd like you to know your work's appeal goes far beyond those who share your particular photographic interests. Have a great time with your celebration. You deserve it!
Thank you for your work. You've been trully inspiring. I've enjoyed seeing how you manage to get shots as up close as you do, but most of all, I've been struck by the emotions you've captured in your project. I look forward to the next step! Take care.
I've been viewing your blog daily for several months now. Just seeing "Express Train" come up highlighted in my Bloglines makes me smile, because I know that it will lead to something interesting and insightful. Yours are the first pictures I've seen that correspond to how I envision the subway, and of course you express them better than I ever could.
If I were in NY, I would definitely come to your party.
I hope you won't take too much time off. I will miss you.
Travis - I've kind of spaced out of the site for the past week. so I'm glad I checked in today. I love the image of the 9th & Smith Station with the sun in the lens and the pretty clouds. I don't know if I can make it to the Subway Inn because a new kitten is coming home this evening, but I'll try. Which stop is it on which line - ironically the directions on mapquest (or whatever it is) are only for driving. When will "they" get it?
Lexington line to 59th street (express stop). Off at the front of the train and stumble on in.
Congrats Travis, it's been a great year, you have a most singular portfolio of wonderful images here, lots of insight into your and your fellow commuters lives.
hi! i've been looking at your pictures every day for a few months now. i love the city and the subway, and your project gives me another look at it. for example, the other day, i was waiting for the train at grand street, i think, and i noticed that i could see through the divider between the train tracks this woman sitting -- sort of hunched over -- with her groceries. anyway, i never would have noticed and appreciated views like that on the subway without having spent a few months with your photos. i'm sorry i can't make it to the bar tonight, but i hope you do that show in the 7th avenue f-stop. that would be gorgeous! best of luck, rebecca
That is one of my favorite things to hear Rebecca. We are finding more and more opportunites to plug in and tune out, it's our loss. It's those quiet moments when you have nothing in your hands and are forced to look at your surroundings that the mind is freed up to consider other realities, ideas and lives.
Congratulations Travis. This is quite an accomplishment, and my guess is that you have found personal satisfaction, value and meaning beyond original intention. I'm wondering if you realized the following that would build or the relationships that you would forge as a result of your creative efforts.
Hopefully the Express Train will continue the ride, and possibly morph into something more interactive, as I have witnessed some really great exchanges on this site. I've learned alot, witnessed even more. Your life and commute always seem so exotic compared to my simple and insulated world.
Cheers! Have a drink for me - that bar looks like a totally great place - perfect for your celebration.
Travis, Congratulations. What an achievement. My husband introduced me to your blog and I could not stop checking it out in a daily basis ever since. Your shots have been a great inspiration. Can’t wait to meet you tonight ☺.
Thank you Travis. Looking at your pictures every morning was a great moment and as receiving news from a friend. You are a fabulous and generous photographer. I hope to see your new work soon.
Happy Birthday Travis! The photoblog of the year as far as I'm concerned. Enjoy your evening, and thanks for all the photos.
Congratulations Travis. I've been viewing your site for many months and I'm really impressed with how long you've been able to keep this up. Hope it can go on for a long while more.
James
Also- If you ever do that show in the subway, please email me. I would happily help you set it up if you'd need the help. Just let me know.
Well, Travis, thanks for the illuminating ride. Hope there will be more in the year to come, or at least enough to feed the visual addiction you've created! One of the most surprising realizations was recognizing someone I know on one of your "F train to Brooklyn" shots.
An actuarial dream--what are the chances?
As Victoria said, there's a chance we may stop in at the Subway Inn this evening, but if not, I hope we'll meet again.
Travis,
Thanks very much for your work. There are only two photoblogs I visit daily, and this is one of them. I think what drew me to your photographry wasn't so much the particular setting (though it's great, it's just that I'm not a New Yorker), but the quality of the photos and the stories they told. You've done fantastic work, and have captured common people in the most amazing ways. I hope that, after your break, there's more to come. Thanks again.
I'm spendig a couple of days printing images for an upcoming show in Feb. It's a whole different world trying to print these scenes. You can get away with so much when you're just processing for screen. I'm feeling the pain of the unfortunate subway lighting now.
Travis, you rule. Your site is home to the best photos I have ever seen in my life.
Travis:
Congratulations on a beautiful ride. I am delighted by your ability to find the beauty, grace, and personal in the most isolated and impersonal of all moments--the urban commute. I hope you keep going too--I love witnessing the the daily practice of your art. Your project is wonderful. Thank you. LMx
Travis,
Im so grateful for you having ventured into this project. I found your site last feb and have been checking it almost every day since then. There are many reasons why I enjoy your site.
When i first found it I was looking forward to going to the USA to visit some friends, and the NYC. I went, I saw, and I took some photographs underground myself. Since experiencing the subway myself in the summer I visited more regularly, and enjoyed noticing things that I had seen and a few stations I had been to.
Yours was the first photoblog that i found, and from yours I found many many more. You got me into photography, and more so street photography, so much more than I was. I now have my own photoblog and take many pictures. Whenever I think of taking pictures of strangers I think of many of the shots you have taken.
I would never had thought it to be true before, but there are very distiguishable differences in the subway throughout the year, many characteristics that can be used to tell the seasons apart and thats another thing that I have enjoyed.
Thanks for all the inspiration and I do hope you continue with your photography, above or underground.
Phil
Congratulations Travis, it's been a superb year of photo's which I've really enjoyed. I'm looking forward to seeing your next lot of shots.
I love your pictures.
Travis,
You've done a great job. This photoblog is something to be proud of. I thoroughly enjoyed this photoblog, and hope that you continue to intrigue me daily.
Again, congratulations.
K
Congratulations on the achievement, Travis. Yours is work that is often inspirational...
You are so cool! Mazel tov on a commendable milestone.
a belated congratulations on a good year, Travis. you have some nice gems here...
Here is my belated "felicidades"....
I can say I knew you when...when waves, surfers and surf boards were the images in your lense.
Your eye for what is around you is sheer gift. I have always been amazed at how you could partner with the technology of the camera to transform something very solitary and maybe even hidden into something communal and yet richly personal and full of dignity and respect.
I have also always valued your resistance to the opinion that life has to be stopped in order to know it or put into some kind of order so to touch and reveal its sacredness. The authentic nature of life is journey. I remember you once saying that you would never be able to do portraiture photography.
A monastic principle comes to mind: Don't just do something, stand there. It captures the conviction that a moment of stillness need not be the ceasing of life or to capture life need not employ an exercise of arranging it. Each of your photos seems to honor that. They are full of journey. Each is full of motion without being the version of life obsessed with "just doing something" absent revelation of the depth of mystery with which we are each blessed.
Keep on beholding.... Keep on doing justice to the mystery....
With all my love, your favorite Uncle (of course), Uncle Tex
And what a year it has been. I still do not have the nerve you do, but am glad you do have, to take candid pictures of everyday events.
Look forward to seeing much more.
Great four compositions. Very very good shot. My favorite is the third shot with the hair of the woman. Great work !
S.
Congratulations on your beautiful project.
I visited your blog a number of times this year. What struck me beyond the content of your photographs was the nature of the task, the returning to the same activity, day after day. Like a Buddhist practice--each day, everything different, everything the same. Both a discipline and a freeing.
Travis,
Thank you for capturing the images of the real NY as I know and love. Years of riding the train leads you to total numbness when riding it day after day. Your pictures have lead me to ride the trains with all my senses on and looking out for those moments. I am inspired by your work. I have recently taken up photography as a hobby and your work is a breath of fresh air, I feel your pictures have given me the sense of freedom and not to hold back. Thank you, you bring a smile to my face everyday.
Thank you Travis
Congratulations.
Looking forward to the whatever it is this blog will morph into. Your photos are an inspiration to many. Keep it up.
Travis, your words sound to farewell, but I hope I will be wrong.
This summer I spent three weeks in New York on holidays, and I stayed in Brooklyn. Every day I took the F train to Manhattan from Newkirk Av., and every day I recognized all the life I had been watching for months in your site, people, platforms, trains, stations, etc. Everything was familiar to a Spanish tourist, thanks to your amazing photos. So I am grateful to you for having showed the real life in NYC.
Happy anniversary Congratulations from Portugal I love your pictures.
I am touched and overwhelmed by everyone's kind words. Thank you very, very much! This is definitely not a farewell. I'll have my camera tomorrow and the next day, I just may take a little more time getting the images up on line. Travis
Hey Travis,
Congrats on the milestone!
Look forward to seeing more of the NY Underground though your lens.
Hi Travis.
Congratulations on the completion of your project. Looking back you have achieved to take an incredible collection of photos that you can be proud of. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next.
hi,
congratulations from vienna austria toi your anniversary!
your photos are everyday a inspiration and providing a positive start in my day!!!keep it going!
Hi Travis!
Has it really been a year already? whew.
Thanks for your pictures and website. Really great stuff. This stuff is going to be HUGE 20 or 30 years from now. Mark my words.
I was born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx and Jersey. I live in Maine now (last 19 years). Your pictures bring me right back to childhood and the wordless wonder that NYC still inspires in my soul. It is an amazing place with so much history. Of course, the most interesting part of NY is the PEOPLE, and your pics are top notch in capturing that day to day flow of millions of moments. Really great stuff.
Thanks again,
anon
wow, you have become quite an inspiration to many!!! congratrulations!!! your photos have always been amazing. wish we could have made the party. hope to see ya soon!
eric
Thank you travis, i loved it to look nearly every day into yout photoblog and think i learned as well. And i'm sure you did. Hope very much that you will start a new project in some time.
I'm happy with you, that you've reached this goal, it was an interesting way and a fantastic adventure. I'm also a bit sad, that this story ends now. I'll keep an eye of you!
Greetings from Germany,
Hannes
Travis. I've followed your train rides from the beginning and cannot wait for another year of seeing what you see everyday. For me, your photography has given me some balls to go out there and shoot more bravely. While beautiful, your work conveys so many different moods. Congratulations and to many more beautiful images!
Although I live nine hours away from (the great) NYC it feels like I'm there for a glimpse of daily life when I look at your photos. Thanks.
Peter from Sweden
I don't comment much (once I think), but I look at your site everyday. It's a great site, congratulations and keep it up.
love your work, travis.
Hey Travis, I saw one of your pictures on brownstoner.com several months ago and have been checking in ever since. I've also been looking for you - on the subway, on lines you sometimes ride, wondering if my pic was being snapped. Seriously, I check in b/c I love the shots AND becuase I hope I see myself in them one day. LOL.
Travis,
I have to enlist me here and thank you for a great time full of some of the greatest photos I have ever, ever seen in my life.
Has been a great honor and pleasure to be on so many subway trips in NYC with you.
Hope to see your work continue in one way or another.
dlc
Enhorabuena Travis desde Spain!! relamente la poesia de lo cotidiano se hace eco en tus photografias, un gran trabajo de enfoque, nitidez y texturas, los tratamientos de luz dan otra vision sobre la ciudad de NYC, la perspectiva que ofrecen las photos hacen pensar que cualquier ciudad del mundo vive las mismas sensaciones bajo el sub-suelo, yo soy de Barcelona sabes ? y te puedo asegurar que bajo un mismo comun denominador la sociedad de aqui se comporta igual que en tu ciudad, el choque cultural, de razas, de esilos de vida, de situaciones rutinarias, de comportamientos masivos... se reflejan en tus photos, un analisis sociologico que hace pensar. En cierta forma tambien a nivel personal ha cambiado mi vision sobre NYC, el metro de Paris tiene los mismos contenidos visuales, al fin y al cabo cualquier gran ciudad del mundo es reflactable tras una camara con una vision personal como la tuya. Da que pensar, NYC es la ciudad!! Calidad...
Saludos desde Barcelona, Spain....
Congrats!
Hey Travis,
I've followed your sight diligantly since you slipped me your card last February. You've done a remarkable job capturing moments that are so elusive. These moments fall apart in the blink of an eye, and before you blinked, or somebody else did, you captured it...incredible.
Travis,
Since a while back I've become a true fan - it's become a religious exercise that I check your site everyday, and stare at your daily image. It's always enjoyable. And I thank you much for giving me and so many others this daily treat. Get back to your daily routine soon! I can't wait to see the next new one!
Travis,
I've been with you from the very beginning, and all things those people have written here are true and sincere. From me though, suffice to say is that you have changed my view of the everyday commute, of the subway itself, you touched a real, vigorous life into it. Thank you for that and keep going!! You exemplary work is appreciated every single day.All the best!!
Quadruple heartfelt congratulations to you Travis. This site means alot to me. I love & appreciate each and every picture that you upload...so..i decided to write a poem :-)
I take this opportunity to show salute
To you for each expression that you shoot
You are a master artist of your commute
And you do it all while you are en route
For us, you make it worth the while
By uploading a picture to make us smile
Its exciting you notice things in the subway
That dont always stand out on the MTA
If noone has ever told you before
Well, now I'll try to make it outpour
That I think your works are all masterpieces
And I hope your endeavor never ceases
The Louvre will come knocking for you one day
And beg for you to let them display
Your collection of expressions that is so grand
And I hope your collection will continue to expand
You inspire many folks with the life that you capture
With that digital thingamajigg in your hand
So keep up the work - you're great Travis Ruse
And I will always remain to be your fan!
Foto molto dure e concrete
ottima ripresa
Travis, Your journey has been mine from day one. What a wonderful ride. Thanks for tugging at the golden thread that binds one human to another. Your fearless trek has opened my spirit and helped me to embrace the art of living within the moment. My mother passed out of this world during your September pages, but each of her final days were blessed by the images you made. She would study each face, or scene, leaning forward as if to memorize them for a later time. Your images helped her to look deeply and see beyond this life. So, I promised her I would "Tell Travis thanks."
Thanks for sharing all of these shots! They show the human dimension of mass transit and city life, and I've enjoyed visiting very much.
i loved watching them. thanks
x
Congratulations Travis on your full year of dedication. Is this your hobby? I don't live in the city, but I sure like the presentations of every day life in the process of a close society. People, places and things are in our every day lives and your photos sure make them real and normal. I like the process of recoginition and curiosity of the content of each of your photos. I can remember when you thought black and white was the best medium, but this last year you showed there is color to be enjoyed.
Travis, congratulations for a wonderful first year :-)
So sorry it's late, Travis.
I've been with you from day 1, and I'll be here 'til you complete this project. And by gosh, I love viewing NY from an eye who has it.
Congrats, and here's to another year.
Your Loyal.
I caught up with this site this spring and it's been such a pleasure to see my hometown and my favorite part of NYC, the subways through these pictures. Your pictures are magnificent and I hope you continue to find success with this because your work is amazing.
Congratulations Travis!
Cam
Having moved from NY almost half a lifetime ago, your photos make me very homesick. This feeling of longing will undoubtedly inspire me to take many subway photos during my trip back home later in 2006. Thanks for producing a great site with extraordinary photos.
-Eli.
.
really good photos. how did you take them without getting in trouble with people you snapped? you must be very discrete. beautiful images. a feast.
Your work is amazing!
Hi Travis!
I found your photoblog thanks to Luisa (32 comments above). She talked greats things about it, and now I can see she was no wrong.
Congrats for this year (and a half now).
I'll be one of the hundreds of visits you have everyday from now on.
Regards from Prague, Czech Republic