Taking Photographs in the Subway are Illegal

"During the financial crisis, Reinier Gerritsen took photographs of people in the subway between Wall Street and Grand Central Station in the New York banking district. His unposed group portraits of introverted commuters reflect the state of shock of a world unable to comprehend the collapse of the global financial system..."

Reiner Gerritsen's Website

Now that you've seen these you should go watch this Youtube video depicting his process in taking these images, search "Wall Street Stop Reinier Gerritsen".

Okay so the story behind the title of this blog post is this... Last week I took a picture of an elderly woman going down the stairs on a subway platform; once she'd left I went and stood pretty close to the platform edge, looking over to see when the next train would be coming. A couple seconds later I see a police officer who makes a notion at me which I initially thought was him telling me to step back, turns out he wanted me to come over to where he stood. So I did. This imbecile asked what I was taking a picture of and WHY I was taking a picture. I told him I was a photographer and that I like taking pictures of old people (yeah that sounds weird I know). He then informed me that taking pictures in the subway has been illegal since 9/11. I'm standing there like "what the fuck?" I understand the reasoning behind this, the NYPD doesn't want people plotting different ways to fuck up the infrastructure of the MTA. The thing is I'd never heard that before and a lot of my photographs are taken on platforms and in subway cars, so even if he was right-- that rule is definitely not enforced enough. Just wanted to share that small snippet of a day in the life. Speaking of Subway Photography I'm in love with these.  Monsieur Reinier Gerritsen.