Like tail lights on a car, a Yesterscope shows us where we've been and might even offer clues on where we're headed.

The Yesterscopes in this book take their titles from the 365 nicknames assigned to the days in a year by The Anglo American Code and Cypher Company in 1891. In those days, the cost of a telegram depended on the number of characters typed. Writing “Jacket” instead of “January seventeenth” (for example) was a clever way to cheat the system.

The portraits in this book were taken on the NY subway in 2009 using flip phones. These were the last days before smartphones changed how we ride the train forever. The authors hope the commuters pictured in this book always make it safely to all their destinations.