“I started with the Subway series in 1946 and would occasionally shoot in Penn Station until 1958 when I did it full time. I loved the place and what was happening there. It was a spacious and dramatic arena where people in the art of traveling went through a mixture of excitement, a silent patience for waiting and an honest fatigue. My fellow human beings are my main subject matter. When they travel, people are “on the big stage” so to speak. At heart my life’s work with the camera is to interpret the world around me through my own personal vision."
~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)
I was in a very humid Penn Station recently en route to my museum exhibition in upstate New York and thought about Louis and this beautiful image he shot there. I didn’t see a little girl dancing in the shadows but I saw a broad spectrum of humanity and felt that range of emotions he eloquently writes about. His exhibition at this year’s Arles Photo Festival is pulling in the crowds, deservedly so.
