Triggered: Subway Hands
© Hannah La Follette Ryan
I took this photo on March 11, 2020 while on assignment for the New Yorker. I was shooting the coronavirus anxiety manifesting in the hands of passengers on the NYC subway, an extension of my Subway Hands project on Instagram. Little did I know, it would be my last subway ride before a 3 month hiatus. The city officially shutdown a week later. That evening the NBA canceled its season and Tom Hanks announced he had COVID-19.
At the beginning of March, I started to see stark changes in behavior on the subway: compulsive hand sanitizing, passengers holding the pole with napkins or sleeves, stranger danger, disaster shopping. There was very little information about COVID-19 available at the time. A mask mandate was a month away, but speculation was rampant.
On March 11th, I was moving through a train car scanning for latex gloves or nervous tics when I saw a perfect shot: a stooped elderly man holding the pole with a bare fist and a young man wearing goggles, gloves and a gas mask just behind him. On the subway, photos materialize and disappear in the same dizzying second so I zipped across the car before I lost the moment. Normally I shoot discreetly on my iPhone and go largely unnoticed, but I moved so quickly that I could feel my “cover” was blown. Once I took a few frames I turned around and immediately saw a second photo: a woman anxiously gripping the pole with her coat sleeve. I remember noting that I was literally surrounded by anxiety and Covid fear. I knew the woman had seen me take the previous photo so I felt obligated to explain my project and that I was shooting for the New Yorker. Ordinarily, I try not to have this conversation before taking a photo because in an interaction the first thing a person does is shift their body and move their hands. But in this case, she stood rigidly still while we spoke. She let me take the picture and I continued on.
The photo was published in the New Yorker piece and two months later appeared on the cover of Society Magazine in France. The woman came across my post about the French magazine and reached out. I sent her a print and we commiserated about how crazy that week and the ensuing months had been. I read more in that photo today than I did at the time. Now a year later, I see a prescient fear of sickness and contagious fear of the unknown.
To view more of Hannah’s work, visit her website or Instagram
