Photographer Imagined People on London Underground as Heroes of the Classical Paintings

British photographer Matt Crabtree presented a series of photographs where random commuters on London Underground are shown in the style of Renaissance paintings, Mashable writes.

“I was sitting amongst the million or so other commuters on a mundane tube journey into work, when I looked up and saw this lady in a velvet hood, in a classically timeless pose. She was in a beautiful world of her own, one far away from the noise of it all. A 16th-century Flemish painting came to mind, and that’s it, — Crabtree said.

He said that after this first photographs he couldn’t stop observing other passengers and looking for a good angle to shoot them: “Strangely, the London tube is quite a perfect setting for a 16th-century Renaissance portrait: people are usually sitting with their hand folded on their knee, or reading their iPhone like a treasured book of prayers. Amd they’re lit from above by the tube’s harsh carriage lighting.”

The series has recently got attention of many media outlets which caught Crabtree by surprise: he now plans to make a book of his photos and have a solo exhibition.