Last week, we asked the photographer Daniel Arnold to ride several New York subway lines to the last stop, and to document these journeys for The New Yorker Photo Department’s Instagram feed. Arnold, who is thirty-four, began taking pictures ten years ago, after moving to New York from Milwaukee, but he is best known for his work on Instagram, which he began using in 2011. “Even a year into Instagram, a year into getting all this positive feedback, I still wasn’t thinking of these images as photos. It was just this comic-strip language,” Arnold told me. “I definitely do now. I think that these photos are much more immediate than anything else I’ve done.”
Arnold’s proximity to his subjects, many of whom aren’t aware that they’re being photographed, allows him to capture some beautiful, funny, and disturbing moments. But his work also raises questions about privacy in public spaces. Arnold, who sees himself working in the tradition of New York street photographers, maintains that he is doing nothing wrong. “I’ve posted some pretty risky things,” he said. “I never hold back posting something because I’m afraid of someone’s response. There are photos I don’t take, but I don’t shy away from sharing what I have taken.” When he’s caught taking someone’s picture, he often explains that he intends the work as a compliment. “I’ll be like, ‘I’m sorry to bother you. You make New York look how I always wanted it to look.’ ”