bus.scapes

“bus.scapes” by Susanne Wehmer focuses on the bus as a humble means of transport, centering on the journey rather than the destination. It reveals raw, black-and-white glimpses of social, urban and human-shaped landscape realities.

bus.scapes

bus.scapes is a photography project started by Susanne Wehmer during bus journeys.

What began unintentionally as a way to kill time while looking out of the bus window, turned into a project that started to make real sense to me.

My project focuses on one of the most humble modes of transport, which people use more for necessary journeys than for pleasure: the bus.

It also focuses on the journey itself, not on a beautiful or special destination. 

And it has a social dimension, as the bus does not take the most beautiful routes, but the most direct ones, returning a real and raw image of what exists outside: poor neighbourhoods, rich neighbourhoods, natural landscapes, landscapes altered by man, abandoned places, factories, anonymous plots of land…

Personally I have a background as a hyperrealistic painter, which is what you will find when you google my name.

This project is the polar opposite, and aesthetically I am fascinated by introduction of randomness as a determining factor, the total impossibility of controlling the composition due to the speed of the bus, the blurring and distortions caused by reflections, dirt or drops on the glass, the unusual angle (from higher up due to the height of the bus), which become the language of the project.

The resulting images, in high-contrast black and white, present raw views of places that can rarely be considered ‘landscapes’ in the traditional sense, but are a glimpse of reality, sometimes crude, sometimes beautiful, sometimes funny.

Susanne Wehmer

52 year old mother of a 9 year old.

swehmer@gmail.com