Passenger
Passenger is a convergence of nineteenth-century technology and contemporary photographic practice, an extended meditation on time, movement, growth, and the ways in which human presence shapes landscape. The project embraces the constraints of photographing through a train window: reflections, motion blur, weather, and the impossibility of stopping. These conditions have become part of its language. Each image is both precise and shaky, a record of place at a specific moment and a fragment in a larger continuum. The human subject is minimal, as focus rests on imprint, transformation, and relics—a vernacular built over time to sustain our society.
The vantage of a train window has been my access point to photograph the American landscape for more than two decades. My first image came in 2002, while traveling from Charlottesville, Virginia, to New York City for a photo expo. I watched the steady transition from rural to suburban to urban environments as the train moved north, catching glimpses of places unfamiliar to me. Mesmerized, I raised my camera to capture these fleeting scenes—marking the beginning of what has become my ongoing project, Passenger. Since then, I have photographed on forty-four Amtrak trips across the United States, as well as routes in Canada, France, and Scandinavia, creating more than 15,000 born-digital photographs.
This series follows the rail line from my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, to New York City and beyond—a significant stretch of the Northeast Corridor. Traveling this route repeatedly, I observe familiar landmarks and shifting details that reveal the slow transformations of the built and natural environment. These journeys remind me that I am not only a passenger on the train, but also on this planet—briefly here, leaving images as traces for the future.
Are you interested in bringing Passenger to your space? Contact Stacey to discuss options for purchasing, licensing, and more.