The professional photographer Alejandro Cartagena submitted a series of bitter-sweet photographs representing people who commute using carpooling. The pictures could look funny at a first glance when the viewer sees the commuters taking a nap before work crammed in awkward positions in the back of trucks.
Alejandro Cartagena manages to take a bird eye’s view snapshots in the area next to Monterrey, Mexico. Most of his subjects are teenagers who are lying in the back of trucks, sharing space with various things. Some of them throw interested glances to the photographer’s camera and consequently to the viewer but most of them are napping crammed between wheelbarrows, planks of wood, buckets, tools, ropes and wires.
The photographer didn’t gave many details about the “Car Pool” series and presented powerful images instead, full of details that could give us a glimpse into the life of Mexican commuters. Moving away from the goofy looking guys, the images depict the almost dehumanizing way of travel that, as the viewer can easily imagine, could extend way after the commuters go off the trucks and go about their daily lives. However, the photographer is reluctant in explaining the social aspect of his photographs. The reality he sees through lenses isn’t good or bad, it’s mixed and only the viewer can choose an interpretation.
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