BART Connects: BART is a local teen photographer's muse
Owen Flaherty pictured at Glen Park Station.
Do you have a favorite BART memory or story to share? Email a short summary to BART Storyteller Michelle Robertson at [email protected], and she may follow up to schedule an interview.
Most people see BART as a means to an end, a space you pass through to get where you need to go. Owen Flaherty sees BART as a portal to creativity.
Flaherty, a local high school student, is an avid photographer. A few years ago, when he was in eighth grade, he got his first camera – a Panasonic Lumix. Initially, he didn’t have the time or motivation to get out in the world and start photographing. But in the summer after eighth grade, he found himself suddenly drawn to the art form. He credits BART for giving him a jolt of creative inspiration. In a sense, BART was his first muse -- the Beatrice to his Dante.
Flaherty doesn’t remember the first time he set out to photograph the BART system – he's undertaken so many BART photo safaris now, they’ve started to blend together. But he does remember that initial moment when BART first “spoke” to him, like the daemon whispering in Dickinson’s ear.
“BART was exactly what I needed to get started with my photography,” he said. “The people, the movement, the lighting, the station design...BART has everything you need to create a great photograph.”
In the first two months of his photography journey, Flaherty estimated he took more than 2,000 photographs in the system, “and I’m a kid, of course, so I was only able to go out four days a week or so, after school and on weekends.”
Both of Flaherty’s parents are creatives; his mom works at California College of the Arts and his dad is a graphic designer. Before photography, he had trouble finding his medium. Things like painting and drawing were inaccessible to him due to certain personal restraints, but when he discovered photography on a trip with a family friend, the art form unleashed something in him.
“When he was photographing, I could see the expressions on his face, the thoughts in his head,” Flaherty said of the family friend, a professional photographer. "On that trip, I discovered a medium to express myself.”
Above: A selection of Flaherty's BART photos. You can view more photos on his website.
Before high school, Flaherty rarely took BART alone. He grew up in the Bay Area, but he used BART mostly for trips to San Francisco – to see the Nutcracker or go to the symphony, for example. Now he takes it pretty much every day, whether it’s going to school or hanging out with friends or, most frequently, to discover a new spot for taking photos.
“There’s a transition point in your life when you’re a kid and you don’t have a car, but you’re old enough to do your own thing,” Flaherty said. “BART opened things up to me. It’s provided me the opportunity to access the entire Bay Area. It gave me freedom without having to pester my parents for a ride.”
Flaherty estimates he’s visited 90 percent of BART stations and has traveled every line from end to end, except the Blue Line (though he’s ridden most of it).
Often, Flaherty takes BART for “joyrides.” He doesn’t have a specific destination, but he hops aboard looking for zaps of inspiration and insight. “It’s the architecture, the people watching, all the nooks and crannies in the stations” that open his mind and unleash his imagination, he said.
A lot of the time, Flaherty finds himself disembarking at Glen Park (his favorite station), Montgomery Street, or 24th Street Mission stations. He uses BART as a subject for his photographs, but also “to access undiscovered locations and different communities of people around the Bay Area.”
“BART is what makes the Bay Area the Bay Area,” Flaherty said. “People know BART. Because of BART, when I’m traveling outside the state, I don’t say I’m from Albany, California, I say I’m from the Bay.”
Flaherty is working toward obtaining his driver’s license now, but he says he will always prioritize traveling by BART.
“I don’t want to be cooped up in a tin can on my own,” he said. “I want to be with other people, in a bigger tin can.”
About the BART Connects Storytelling Series
The BART Connects storytelling series was launched in 2023 to showcase the real people who ride and rely on BART and illustrate the manifold ways the system affects their lives. You can follow the ongoing series at bart.gov/news.
The series grew out of BART's Role in the Region Study, which demonstrates BART’s importance to the Bay Area’s mobility, cultural diversity, environmental and economic sustainability. We conducted a call for stories to hear from our riders and understand what BART means to them. The call was publicized on our website, social media, email blasts, and flyering at stations. More than 300 riders responded, and a selection of respondents who opted-in were interviewed for the BART Connects series.