The faces show extreme stress and fatigue like torture victims forced to endure hours of torment by their captors. Not surprisingly they are unwilling to be seen in such a vulnerable state but they have no means of stopping the photographer. The most they can do is hold up their hands in the classic ‘no publicity’ pose, close their eyes or stare blankly; one gives the finger but mostly the expressions are passive as if they are resigned to this ignoble fate, cogs in a system that packages humanity with such brutal indifference.
The subjects of these images are commuters on the Japanese metro shot by German-born photographer Michael Wolf. These are on display at this year’s Savignano Immagini Festival in Italy and Wolf’s portfolio was easily the most striking of the exhibitions I saw.
The pictures were taken before the awful Tsunami in March and the subsequent radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear plant 170 miles away. Immediately after these tragic events Tokyo was reported to be a ghost town but the authorities state that things are getting back to normal.
By normal, I presume they mean a resumption of herding and packing workers in subway trains in this horrible fashion. Wolf’s photos give a shocking and stark exposé of an overcrowded metropolis where commuters endure the same indignity as animals packed into trucks in readiness for a final journey to the slaughterhouse.
Three images from the exhibition at Savignano Immagini Festival
