Alone in a Sea of People

New York Subway, somewhere underneath Manhattan

Big cities fascinate me.  Each one has its own feel to it, and yet in many ways they are all the same.  Large, bustling, vibrant and full of life.  Full of people living the novels of their lives.  I love to visit large cities and just hit the pavement with my camera. 

If you wander the streets of any large city, though, you'll soon enough encounter the solitary, the lonely, and the pensive.  Sometimes they are quite literally alone.  Sometimes they're surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the city around them, they are alone in a sea of humanity.

Thinking about stuff in Portland

With some the solitude is welcome, a brief respite from hectic lives or the demands of others.  With others, though, the solitude is imposed, either by a society that ignores their plight or by the demons in their head that alienate them from others. Sometimes it is easy to tell which is which; sometimes it is more difficult.

The photos in this series span from December, 2007 to August, 2011.  They weren't taken as a series but just as shots over time.  It wasn't until I started culling older shots that the series came to mind. 

The entire series Alone in a Sea of People can be viewed on my Flickr feed here.