The afternoon rush in Copenhagen, inspired by MC Escher. “If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”
– Henry Miller
I’m really not a train guy. Despite all the images on this blog suggesting otherwise, I couldn’t tell you the first detail about locomotives or gauges, routes or liveries.
But in the gleaming – or dilapidated – vehicles, the frenetic stations and the detritus, I see stories. Of adventure. Of tragedy. Beginnings and endings. Speed and stasis. The machines that deliver us to the moments: the defining experiences of travel…
A quick shot going up an escalator, somewhere in the north part of the Paris Metro system.
A vintage feel.
An escalator in the massive Châtelet station in the Paris Metro. In the center of the city, the station was just over 100 years old when I took this shot back in 2001. No need for digital film grain and dust filters on this shot — actual film grain and dust comes from the Ilford HP5 I used at the time, and the Nikon scanner to make the digital image. I miss the darkroom days.
A distinct splash of colour amidst the muted tones of Davisville station.
A lone passenger departed a late night train at Finch station – the end of the line.
Looking up toward a westbound afternoon train.
At Eglington Station.
In the poorly-lit DC Metro.
Somewhere along the Bloor-Danforth line.
Somewhere in the Budapest metro system.
A long view of the different floors of the Louvre’s Richelieu wing, with modern architecture that’s an unmistakable nod to Louis Kahn and his geometric features.
One of the escalators up to track level at Warden Station.
Just before the closing of the subway doors, at a station on the Bloor-Danforth line.
A couple moving between the East-West and North-South platforms of the Younge-Bloor station.
Shoppers at Le Bon Marche in Paris.
Escalator in the metro station Vieux Lyon/Cathédrale Saint-Jean, leading to the funicular tram to Fourvière.
The sign says “The most important collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe.” That both says it all, and is merely a beginning — a portal to new worlds, new ideas and new creativity. The Centre Georges Pompidou is my favourite place in the city of Paris.
Three levels of the Hôtel de Ville Metro station, one of the original eight stations in the city’s system when the first section was first opened in 1900.