People: Street (AMATEUR) - HONORABLE MENTION
Underground: Many In High Water
Photo © Sean Bulson
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“People living in London ‘have highest anxiety in the UK’”1 and “London commuters ‘most anxious people in UK’, survey finds”2 made the headlines in October 2013. When questioned by the Office of National Statistics, more than one in five Londoners had reported very high anxiety levels. The ONS concluded: “London has the most disposable income, but very little life satisfaction and very high anxiety”.
As a photographer with an academic background in Sociology, I wanted to add photographic insight to the debate surrounding quality of life in the capital, and see if I could produce a series of photographs which reflect the ONS findings.
The project title is a deliberate echo of Walker Evans' 'Many are Called'. As the founding father of public transport photography, Evans documented passengers on the New York subway between1938-41. There are similarities of method between our projects: both are shot on monochrome film (the XPan is a unique panoramic film camera) and essentially, the 'portraits' are unstaged, catching the subject unaware.
While Evans achieved a general, 'democratic' survey of passenger 'types', my approach is more selective. Documenting the Underground provides the opportunity to capture the stress, ennui and anxiety the ONS associated with life in the capital.
I continue to photograph on the Underground, but with a shared emphasis on the architectural environment that aesthetically reflects the tone of the portraits.
Sean Bulson MA
1 BBC, 23 October 2013
2 Financial Times, 23 October 2013
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“People living in London ‘have highest anxiety in the UK’”1 and “London commuters ‘most anxious people in UK’, survey finds”2 made the headlines in October 2013. When questioned by the Office of National Statistics, more than one in five Londoners had reported very high anxiety levels. The ONS concluded: “London has the most disposable income, but very little life satisfaction and very high anxiety”.
As a photographer with an academic background in Sociology, I wanted to add photographic insight to the debate surrounding quality of life in the capital, and see if I could produce a series of photographs which reflect the ONS findings.
The project title is a deliberate echo of Walker Evans' 'Many are Called'. As the founding father of public transport photography, Evans documented passengers on the New York subway between1938-41. There are similarities of method between our projects: both are shot on monochrome film (the XPan is a unique panoramic film camera) and essentially, the 'portraits' are unstaged, catching the subject unaware.
While Evans achieved a general, 'democratic' survey of passenger 'types', my approach is more selective. Documenting the Underground provides the opportunity to capture the stress, ennui and anxiety the ONS associated with life in the capital.
I continue to photograph on the Underground, but with a shared emphasis on the architectural environment that aesthetically reflects the tone of the portraits.
Sean Bulson MA
1 BBC, 23 October 2013
2 Financial Times, 23 October 2013
BACK TO GALLERY
