GOST Books is pleased to announce the February release of The Grind, a new photography book by BBC presenter Steve Madden. Captured between January 2017 and March 2020, Madden’s images reveal the mysterious beauty of anonymous commuters behind the misty windows of London’s iconic red buses.
The spark for this series first struck in October 2005, when Madden spotted a woman framed by a fogged-up bus window on Shaftesbury Avenue. Years later, recalling that fleeting moment, he began photographing cold, rainy evenings across London—seeking condensation on bus windows as it formed unfamiliar shapes and half-obscured glimpses of everyday lives. “I was searching for the beauty in the half-obscured passengers,” Madden says. “It’s a mix of fleeting glimpses into people’s lives and the strange, unpredictable shapes they make behind the condensation.”
Madden spent his mornings hosting for the BBC and, whenever it rained or temperatures dropped, ventured into Central London to station himself near bus stops. His images capture a small yet telling snapshot of the five million bus journeys made in the capital each day. “All the best pictures were the ones that got away, of course—it’s one of the world’s busiest cities, and it’s full of obstructions, many of them human,” Madden notes. “I traveled all over London—Finsbury Park, Hounslow, Islington, Kingston, Strand, Stratford, Waterloo, Whitechapel—drawn back time and again to certain bus stops. London never stands still; routes are withdrawn, roads are pedestrianized, and buses become more air-conditioned. What I did there is already becoming history. Change is what happens when you’re looking the other way…”
The Grind by Steve Madden will be available from GOST Books in February.