12 McNair_Evans_Cover_Crescent_10001

Life On A Long-Distance Train

Scroll
Words

This week we launched our first iGNANT Issue edition, centered around ‘The Art Of Waiting’, where we show projects from architecture to fashion related to the topic. And when is a sense of passing time more heightened than during a long-distance journey?

“For the most part long-distance trains are for people trying to get their lives together, to find work, or to reunite with people they love whom they hope will love them back.” In ‘The Search For Great Man’, American photographer McNair Evans captured the passengers of long-distance trains. They kill the long hours of  transit in many ways: by reading, playing, talking on the phone, sleeping. But most of all, people on Evans’s photographs seem to go with their thoughts beyond the train, focusing on what waits for them at the end of the journey. “For the most part long-distance trains are for people trying to get their lives together, to find work, or to reunite with people they love whom they hope will love them back,” explains Evans. Trying to get to the core of their ‘real’ journey, the photographer asked the passengers to write something about themselves – why they were traveling, where they were coming from, and where they hoped to go. He says: “Individually their stories are about a desire for something to happen, or a situation they are trying to rectify. A single mother commuting to the oil fields of North Dakota. A teenage son hoping to reunite with his father.” Through candid portraits and genuine life stories, Evans managed not only to document a part of American society, but also poetically captures deeper meanings of ‘the journey’.

07 McNair_Evans_Photography__Southwest_Chief_15002
18 McNair_Evans_Photography__Silver_Star_02009
19 McNair_Evans_Photography__Silver_Star_19003
09 McNair_Evans_Photography__Sunset_Limited_53011
16 McNair_Evans_Photography__California_Zephyr_27009
08 McNair_Evans_Photography__Southwest_Chief_27011
20 Evans_Silver_Star_23010
11 McNair_Evans_Photography__Crescent_03001
04 McNair_Evans_Photography__Capital_Limited_12001
12 McNair_Evans_Photography__Crescent_10001
17 McNair_Evans_Photography__California_Zephyr_41005
13 McNair_Evans_Photography__Crescent_13001
03 McNair_Evans_Photography__Capital_Limited_10003
14 McNair_Evans_Photography__Empire_Builder_06008
02 McNair_Evans_Photography__California_Zephyr_32011

All images © McNair Evans

Subscribe To Our Newsletter
SIGN UP