“I never want to see another picture of ________.” Industry veterans share their pet peeves on themes in contemporary photography. In this series they present their “rule” along with five photographs that break the rule in an effort to show that great work is the exception to the rule.

Rule Setter: Roger Thompson, Senior Editor, Don’t Take Pictures
Rule Breaker: Michael Wolf

I never want to see another set of subway photos. From the forlorn images of empty subway stations to blurry shots of speeding trains juxtaposed with still figures in the foreground, the genre of underground commuting life has more than run its course.

Or so I thought until l saw Michael Wolf’s images from his Tokyo Compression series on view at Bruce Silverstein Gallery.

Videos of Tokyo commuters went viral some years ago and periodically refresh in our newsfeeds. People are crammed into over-packed cars like sardines and illustrate the desperation of contemporary work life—be on time or be out of a job. The videos are startling and feature subway workers with bright white gloves packing people tighter and tighter into overstuffed cars so that the doors can close. The videos are at once ridiculous and horrific.

Wolf’s images zoom in on the chaos and highlight the desperation of the people inside. Commuters’ faces are pressed up against the glass of the subway cars, many with eyes closed, quietly enduring the indignity of the situation. The subway car windows, packed with human heat, perspire in the stale air, and the glass is bespeckled and streaked with moisture, obscuring the human lives inside. If a face is not utterly distorted by being smashed against glass, it disappears behind the streaking moisture of the foggy window. The result is an unsettling portrait of life and a rumination on notions of success and labor. Wolf captures the vulnerability of the human body in these images, but perhaps most of all, he demonstrates the shared suffering that results from the unchecked power of a workaday world.
—Roger Thompson