Maintaining social distance on the underground is really not hard at all these days as its mostly empty . Even before the current lockdown the bulk of the commuting population of London had not returned. It feels like its about 75% down which is inadvertently creating a very pleasant experience . This is in stark contrast to being on the Underground before the Invisible enemy descended as there was one thing that had really came to define London and that was packed tubes. And over the years, as rising rents shunted most normal earners into the outskirts to places they could afford the transportation system of this city became more and more congested.
Crammed in like the proverbial sardines, made to have your body pressed up against a stranger you had no interest in being even remotely near…this was life on the underground and we all endured it because we had no choice. At rush hour you looked down a carriage to see two hundred plus people in a space designed for 50 all pretending everyone around them didn’t exist. And that was the norm. Personal space was an impossibility. And you dreamt of travelling on a train that didn’t instantly induce a claustrophobic panic attack and then suddenly, one day, all the people were gone.
People have been avoiding the tubes since the pandemic to avoid people but there are not really any people on it. Not since I was a kid and I used to hang off the miniature punching bags dangling from the ceiling have I enjoyed being on the tube quite so much. But even though enjoyable, it is also very fucking eerie. You feel like you are in a sci-fi where everyone’s vanished and you are the last remaining person alive. It is also extremely weird because when you do see someone, they are masked up to the hilt looking like Bane’s offspring. You are too obviously but you can’t see how scary you look.
And yet this weirdness and emptiness is starting to feel normal so felt it was important to show you some shots taken on the night tube to remind you that it isn’t. We cannot make our current existence normal. This is just something we are doing temporarily whilst we wait for our pre-covid lives to return. We cannot forget this.
I am also sharing these with you as have just completed a new prototype photography book documenting 3 years of travelling on the night tube at around 3am every Saturday night on my way back from my ‘night job’ which is currently on hiatus as is the whole of the nitelife world. I know it existed because I have shots to prove it but it already feels like a dream..and I really hope we wake up someday soon…cos days are alright and everything but nights are way more fun..
