Photos of people on the move

by Lorenzo Piccoli


For the last few months I have put aside notables photos of people on the move. There are four somehow symmetrical photos that strike me more than all the others. All of them, I realise in insight, have an aura of sacrality: maybe this is why I like them so much. I post them below, in chronological order. It feels strange to look at them in these times of forced immobility.

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Hal Morey. Grand Central Terminal of New York Central Station, 1929. It depicts the sacrality of the places that we use to move around: I had to think of Morey’s picture when reading this article, recently. Here the train station appears like a cathedral. Original here.

Hal Morey - New York Central Station - 1929

Alex Webb. San Ysidro, California, 1979. Mexicans arrested while trying to cross the border to United States. Original.

Alex Webb - San Ysidro 1979.jpg

Sebastião Salgado. Churchgate Station in Mumbai, India, 1979. Original here.

Sebastiao Salgado - Churchgate Station, Mumbai - 1979

John Stanmeyer. Djibouti City, 2013. Migrants in Djibouti searching for cell signals from neighboring Somalia. Original here.

John Stanmeyer - Djibouti City - 2014