Voyeurism in the Afternoon

I had the day off today and spent a lazy morning home hanging out with the dogs.  By the afternoon, I was feeling the need to take advantage of the not-too-offensive June weather and head into the city. A few minutes later, I was on an Orange Line train headed toward the Smithsonian.  My plan had been to see the new George Bellows Exhibit at the National Gallery (stay tuned for that later), but I got sidetracked on the ground floor of the West Building by I Spy, a photography exhibition featuring images people on the street. 

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/ispyinfo.shtm



The body of work from six photographs spanned almost 80 years from the Walker Evans 1930s hidden camera shots of people on the subway and streets of New York to Robert Frank's glimpses of people seen from the window of a bus to Beat Streuli's present day videos of people leaving the subway.   Most of the older photos were taken surreptitiously, but even those in which the subject gave permission for the photo, manage to capture an authenticity and transparency of emotion that is so hard to capture.  I was struck by how sad most of us look when we aren't putting on a show. 

If an afternoon of people watching is your cup of tea (and, really, who's going to say no to that?), this is exhibit is well worth a visit.  Open through August 5, 2012