Nightmarish Scenes from New York's Subway

That was not the only fortuitous moment John happened upon in the subway. He has a sensibility that allows him to see the ironic in the ordinary with just a moment’s exposure. He photographed a drunk passed out underneath a Johnny Walker Red holiday poster, a young Jehovah’s Witness wearing a “Kingdom of God” T-shirt and clinging to a chained up utility gate with a NO ADMITTANCE sign above his head, and a 12-year-old boy seated in a car, smoking a cigarette, at the end of the phrase “Love sex” written on the seat in graffiti.

“I love the conjunction of it,” Conn says. “It’s like, of course, after sex you smoke a cigarette. It makes all the sense in the world.”

One of his most iconic shots literally came from nowhere. He was photographing a couple of tourists in one of the last stations on the Pelham line when he heard a voice cry out, “Yo, this would be a good photo.” He turned to see an arm holding a knife though the subway car’s kicked-out window. He took the shot, the flash went off, the arm withdrew, and the subject disappeared.

Conn has never had a showcase of the photos all together, but he hopes to one day have the entire collection published as a book. For the time being, he sells them emblazoned on T-shirts online and at a booth in Union Square “The subway had a certain flair back then,” says Conn, reflecting on the idea of a book, “and you can’t see that anymore. This project has been 30 years in the making and now I’m 60, I don’t think I have another 30 years to wait to see it memorialized.”

Seth Michael Donsky is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has screened at the Berlin, Seattle, London and Cinequest International Film Festivals and MoMA, New York. As a journalist he has been published inLos Angeles Confidential, Gotham , the New York Press, and the online versions of ELLE Décor, Metropolitan Home and Home. His writing will appear in Cleiss Press’ upcoming Best Sex Writing of 2010.