We like to think of London as an exciting bustling metropolis packed with joy and adventure.
You have cultural hotspots on your doorstep! There’s great food and shopping! Our wildly high rents for tiny studio flats are worth it!
But then we get on the Tube at rush hour and head to work, and remember that actually, we hate London. It is hell.
Photojournalist Adam Gray has spent the last eight months hopping on the London Underground during the morning rush hour to capture citydwellers’ true misery.
He snapped photographs of unknowing subjects on his iPhone, documenting the fed-up expressions and sleep-robbed eyes that you’ll spot on every morning commute.
If there’s one thing that unites us, it’s the shared indignity of being pressed up against someone’s armpit after shoving yourself on to a carriage.
Adam, 33, said: ‘These forlorn visages show the grim daily grind, the Orwellian dystopia predicted in 1984.
‘Nobody has their own space – commuters are all one – and they are all miserable.
‘I didn’t see any tears during my morning sojourns across the capital, but I didn’t see any mirth either.
‘It’s fascinating to me that, regardless of age, race, size or gender, everybody on the London Underground looks miserable. And their expression doesn’t change with the seasons.’
One of the portraits, taken last Autumn, shows a woman struggling to stand upright as she was surrounded by arms clutching on to the rails.
‘I took the picture of her because she was wearing a jumper that said “Never ending” on it,’ said Adam.
‘I’m not sure if it was deliberate on her part, but that statement on her sweater is an allegory for the never-ending misery of commuting on the massively-congested Tube network.
‘There’s no chance of getting a seat, so people jostle and fight to get a hand on the rails or bars.
‘It’s not uncommon to see people just surrounded by strangers’ arms, buzzing around like moths to a flame.
‘Another thing that struck me as unusual about the ‘crush hour’ is that nobody speaks.
‘Everybody travels alone, and keeps to themselves, so you can be stuck on a carriage with a hundred other people, and the only sound is the clickety-clack of the train on the tracks, or the tinny rattle of music being played excessively loud through headphones.’
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