Every month in Mileposts there is a lovely little section that mentions etiquette for people riding the trains. Keeping your feet off the seat and to refrain from conversations on cell phones are almost always mentioned. Although I don’t think Mileposts has made note of it, nail clipping on the train is generally frowned upon, and seems to be a pretty big pet peeve of commuters. But what if you could do all of those things at once? You would probably be the most obnoxious train passenger ever. Sort of like this:

I’ve always wanted to do this on a train for quite a while, but timing was always difficult. Every time I’ve done a photo like this in the past, I would put my camera on 10 second delay, hit the shutter and run to the spot I needed to be in… relatively time consuming. However, I recently bought a wireless remote for my camera, and realized it would make my scheme a whole lot easier.

As my evening train arrived at Southeast last night, I quickly set the camera up on a tripod and took various pictures of myself in the train car. It took me about four minutes to get all of the photos. If it wasn’t for people liking the photo on twitter, I probably would never have posted it here, as I’m not tremendously happy with how it turned out.

I definitely want to attempt this again when I have the ability to take my time, not rushing through because the train is about to go into the yard. Plus, I think it is hard to notice in some of the pictures I am clipping my nails, and combing my hair. But for the most part, these are the obnoxious things we commuters tend to see every day. And for a couple of moments in time, I was that most obnoxious passenger.

9 Responses

  1. Holger says:

    Oh nice – I like that! How is that done – multiple photos and afterwards photoshopped or did the camera expose the same picture as often as you changed your position?

  2. Keith says:

    The luggage rack is my favorite!

    You missed the I just had 4 beers in paper bags pose, or I’m eating a very tasty Limburger cheese, Salami, Liverwurst , horseradish, onion and garlic (basically any meat/cheese/condiment that has a scent which permeates the air) 3 foot hero for my trip home pose……

  3. Tyler says:

    Kudos for actually pulling this ridiculous stunt in real life! (Especially climbing up to the luggage rack!) It looks fantastic, and I really look forward to your second attempt!

    I did the same thing a while ago, except the photos of me were taken in my home studio (my basement + photo lights and a backdrop) and Photoshopped into a photo of an empty subway train. I was not exactly a master of photo lighting back then and my costumes were lame, so the final product is quite awful.

    I went for a drunk guy passed out on a seat, a panhandler, a sleeping guy blocking the doors, two tourists, and a performance artist.
    http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee261/TrainManTy/subway_portrait1.jpg

    • Emily says:

      Oh yeah, doing it IRL was so much easier. But of course, the problem is getting the time to do it. Though the perk of your method is being able to change clothing. And having a mini guy holding your hand :D

  4. Dave The Wave says:

    Immediately struck by the luggage rack. Rocking! And it turns out I’m not the only one! Kudos …

  5. The photo looks great and definitely reminds us of quite a few passengers that we see around Harlem, although we’ve never seen anyone seated on the luggage rack…

Leave a Reply to Vantage Properties Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *