In October 2005, BBC presenter Steve Madden was standing in Shaftesbury Avenue when he saw a woman on the 38 bus, her figure framed by the misted-up window, which reflected the lights from the street. He took a snapshot and, years later, struck by a similar scene, he had the idea for a photography series. Between January 2017 and March 2020, he waited for cold, rainy evenings, then stationed himself in various locations around London to photograph commuters visible through the bus windows. “I was searching for the beauty in the half-obscured passengers,” he says. “It’s a mix of fleeting glimpses into people’s lives and the strange, unpredictable shapes they make behind the condensation.”
