[work in progress]
For me, some of the most intriguing sights and sounds of summer can be found travelling the 1:05 pm train from Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn to Sayville, Long Island. I make this trek on the Long Island Railroad several times each summer on my way out to Fire Island.
The train runs express most of the way to the town of Babylon. As the train whooshes past the local stops in between, the passengers waiting for the local trains on those platforms rush by the train windows in a blur. Sometimes I wonder what I might be missing within these blurs, and I decided to take some pictures to get a glimpse of life and the reactions to the speeding train as it passes the otherwise tranquil platforms.
The photographs here are presented in geographic order from east to west, according to the sequence of stations along the Babylon Branch Line. Over several trips I photographed the same stations at almost the same exact time of day, but, of course, on different days. Sketches of life are seen on those familiar stages.
The train often moved at such a high-speed that the images I took were only slightly less blurry than if one were watching them in the moment. On other days, the train slowed enough for me to more clearly capture the everyday activities of the subjects. Fast or slow, these images always make me wonder what stories might behind them.
[click on a thumbnail below, then adjust your browser window size to see larger images]
