Exploring the Underbellies of Cars, Bikes and Trains
One photographer’s dramatically different take on vehicular artwork.
Unless you’re a mechanic, odds are good you don’t spend much time looking up at the undercarriage of a car. And even if your days are filled with grease-monkey business, you’re probably spending most of your time staring at one problematic area of the car or another. You’re not taking a step back to appreciate the entire underside of the car as a whole. You don’t get to see the quasi-organic beauty, the intricate detail normally hidden away from the world on the far side of the hard shell we normally look at. It’s hard to get under there, and, y’know, Marvel’s Jessica Jones isn’t going to watch itself.
Luckily for all of us, Bulgarian photographer Yasena Popova wouldn’t let logistical difficulties or her TV viewing schedule keep her from getting under the vehicles that roam the roads and rails. For her photo series “Urban Insects,” Popova—who claims she sees vehicles as giant arthropods—captured the rarely seen ventral angle of a wide range of vehicles. Starting with a bicycle, she works her way up to motorcycles, cars, construction equipment, and even grabs a shot of a locomotive’s belly.
The more you look at her work, the more impressive it becomes—and the more you start to see her point about these everyday modes of transportation resembling those little six-legged dudes and dudettes crawling around in your garden. Check out all the images below, and if you like ’em, feel free to download them—they’re high-res. They’ll look great on your wall next to those dope NASA posters.
