It Rides Upon Us

It Rides Upon Us is a photobook, originally published in 2012. At the time, it was my first "serious" art project, and over a decade later it continues to hold a special place in my heart. Though at the time I had almost no experience with algorithms or generative art, it's obvious to me in retrospect that I was moving in that direction with this project. This token contains the 240-page book in its entirety as a PDF artifact.

Thank you for collecting.

In June 2007, I came to Washington, DC, for the first time. I took the Amtrak Northeast Regional train from Boston, through Providence and New Haven, NYC-Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and finally arriving at Union Station in DC approximately eight hours later. The train was less expensive than flying, and it seemed like an easier option while traveling with three heavy bags that contained the sum of my worldly possessions. I spent that trip, and many subsequent ones, looking out the window at a unique landscape of decay—a landscape I decided that I wanted to share with you in this book.

This is not a textbook or an atlas. It is a book of photographs presented in a deliberate order to tell a story. The story is about a place: the space alongside the train tracks known as the Northeast Corridor (NEC) route, which runs between two of America's most concentrated centers of influence: New York City and Washington, DC.

I will avoid giving too much of that story away here, in the introduction, since I am determined to let the photographs speak for themselves. Instead, I will preface them by explaining how this project was conceived and executed.

In December 2011, I took the train from DC to New York to visit my aunt, Annie Leibovitz. On that trip, for the first time, I pointed my camera out the window and took pictures of the landscape. When I showed the pictures to her, she suggested that I create a book from these photographs, and I decided to seek funding via Kickstarter and follow through with the project.

Before attempting to shoot any more photographs, I took several trips on the train and simply looked and took notes, recording the location of specific landmarks and tableaus to shoot later. When it came time to move forward and produce the final set of photographs, I enlisted the help of two close friends, Daniel McLaughlin and Dan Yelin, who provided invaluable assistance on the train.

Shooting on the train was a far more complicated endeavor than I had expected. I opted to rent a Nikon D3S due to its low sensor noise at high ISO settings, which allowed for very high shutter speeds necessary to capture landscapes from the window of a moving train. I shot on a monopod to avoid fatigue and switched between two telephoto lenses—a 24-70mm and a 70-200mm—for maximum versatility.

Though this kit was ideal for shooting from the train, the camera was very loud, and the "CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK" noise of my shutter bursts upset travelers and conductors alike. At times I cowered in my seat, sneaking shots when possible with the camera on "quiet mode" to avoid being expelled from the train.

One conductor became so annoyed that he asked if I would like to shoot out the back of the train, in the tiny metal compartment at the rear of the last car. I gladly took him up on that offer, and many of the best shots in this book came as a result of his kindness.

In all, I took over 20,000 photographs for this project. The book contains over 900 of the best shots, included in an order that made sense visually. As noted above, this is not an atlas, and the images are not presented in any order based on geography. I wanted to tell a story with a long-form photoessay, so I divided the photographs into sections based on the elements they contain.

I hope you enjoy the ride.