A Zine That Captures the Many Faces of Washington, D.C.’s Metro Riders

Patrick Wright describes himself as shy. But, over the course of four years he faced his usual discomfort approaching strangers head-on and snapped photos of over a thousand passengers on Washington, D.C.’s Metro.

The riders’ willingness to be photographed surprised Wright, the creator of the new zine, SIDETRACKED (Slow Dance Press), which includes 45 images from the project taken between 2014 and 2018. Wright has been living in D.C. since 2006, and the zine is his first publication. He says this project is a natural evolution of his work because since he “got serious” about photography six years ago, he has been mainly interested in taking portraits of strangers. Previously, he photographed people at Union Station and along H Street Northeast.