Metropolitan Faces

Kali Handelman is an editor and freelance writing coach living in New York City. She has worked at The New School and NYU, and as a managing editor at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Kali started taking and sharing subway photos in the early days of Instagram, in 2011, under #NYcommuterphoto. Sign up for the Metropolitan Faces email newsletter .  Follow Metropolitan Faces on Instagram...

Enrico Natali took pictures on the subway in 1960 while commuting to work as an assistant for fashion photographer Anton Bruehl. Natali later discovered Krishnamurti, gave up photography, and moved to Ojai, where he and his wife opened a meditation center. Sign up for the Metropolitan Faces email newsletter .  Follow Metropolitan Faces on Instagram .  Rate and review Metropolitan Faces on Apple Po...

Eamon Dolan has been a book editor for over 30 years and the author of  The Power of Parting . Raised by Irish parents in the Bronx, Eamon began posting subway photographs on his Instagram @eamondolan in 2015. Sign up for the Metropolitan Faces email newsletter .  Follow Metropolitan Faces on Instagram .  Rate and review Metropolitan Faces on Apple Podcasts , YouTube , or Spotify . Music: Express...

Nina R. posts her subway photographs on her Instagram account @nina_at_nyc_subway . Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Nina took many of these pictures while commuting from her home in Forest Hills to her job as an architect. Sign up for the Metropolitan Faces email newsletter .  Follow Metropolitan Faces on Instagram .  Rate and review Metropolitan Faces on Apple Podcasts , Music: Express Tra...

Ashley Van Buren, a writer and producer working in film, theater, and digital video, started taking subway photographs in 2011. She named her project Subway Stories after a  1997 anthology of short films by 10 directors including her former boss, Jonathan Demme. Sign up for the Metropolitan Faces email newsletter .  Follow Metropolitan Faces on Instagram .  Rate and review Metropolitan Faces on Ap...

Willy Spiller is a Swiss photographer who moved into the Chelsea Hotel in 1977, the year Ed Koch became mayor. His subway photographs are collected in Hell on Wheels . Music: Express Train by Mr Eff, courtesy of Burning Witches Records.  

Rebecca Davis was a video producer for the New York Daily News in 2012 when she started taking candid photographs on the subway, using Hipstamatic filters and posting on Instagram, then Tumblr. She turned the year's subway photographs into a video flipbook called Commuters . With her brother, Rebecca directed and produced the 2023 documentary  Join or Die , about the social scientist Robert Putnam...

Anton Nimblett's subway photographs appear on his Instagram account  @antononwatch . He took many of them while commuting to and from the Bushwick family shelter that he manages. Born in Trinidad, Anton is also the author of the short story collections  Sections of an Orange  and  Now/After . Theme music is Express Train by Mr Eff, courtesy of Burning Witches Records.  

Welcome to Metropolitan Faces!