Halloween Underground
is the culmination of twenty years of photographing people dressed up in fantastical, outlandish costumes against the backdrop of the drab, gritty reality of the New York subway. Seymour Licht captured revelers preening in their outfits as the prelude to the largest Halloween parade in the world—or some private night out where creativity is the currency and mystery and flirtation the prize. The subway becomes the unofficial backstage to the main events of the night, the dark tunnels and ghastly lit platforms, the holding room of the supernatural, eerie and phantasmagorical protagonists. It is only on Halloween that you can enthusiastically change your identity, and the subway is the perfect mode to transport you from the mundane to the spellbinding. You may dream of going out in public dressed as a Pharaoh, a seductive witch, an axe murderer or a mermaid. Halloween is New York in its most heightened state of quirky ingenuity. With his edgy, uncanny portraits, the photographer aims to pay tribute to the outbursts of creativity during this exuberant, spooky holiday in the iconic New York subway.