Eerie

WTO
Graffiti Inside the Subway Tunnel, 6 train.
This was taken on the 6 train somewhere close to the Brooklyn Bridge stop. I was so glad I got this shot. I’ve been admiring and been spinning out on this stuff ever since I was a kid. And it’s very hard to photograph: you have to shoot behind glass, usually in a train full of people, trying to capture an image moving quickly away.

This is without doubt my favourite site for graffiti: inside the subway tunnel. Tags and throw ups along the black walls of the tunnel. They only becomes visible when the train slows down to the point that markings on the tunnels walls can become more than a missed blur. How much of this stuff are we missing? Who writes this stuff!? Who’s risking their everything to put it up!? When and how do they do it? Someone was willing to enter into the very veins of the city to scrawl. They went to a place this is an element of the city’s physical foundation. To me this is part of the mystery and awe occasionally felt towards graffiti; that’s it’s not only obscure: it’s eerie.

A few weeks back, I got talking to a guy on the N train who told me he tags inside the tunnels. He just dresses in black, smoke some kiff and walks to the end of the station platform. There he slips down into the tunnel. When a train comes you just merge into the soot.