American photographer Ruvan Wijesooriya is in the habit of giving and taking. Albeit, in a slightly different way than one might imagine. His #LoveTunnelNYC interactive photo project – returning for the second year – sees the NY-based creative snapping share-ready images of couples and generally loved-up ephemera (look! A cute animal! Some flowers – aww!) around the city before, in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, framing a few dozen – make that thousand – of them and handing them out to unsuspecting people in one of the city’s Subway tunnels.

The images themselves are an attempt to help even the biggest of cynics lighten up just a little – if all that snogging hasn’t yet worked. Wijesooriya explains: "The still life and animal pictures are things I feel can be cherished – things I find either directly or remotely relative to the idea of ‘Valentine’, things that represent the idea of a ‘gift’". Describing the project as the ultimate Valentine's love-letter to the city, Wijesooriya says: “In terms of the weather, the commercial undertones, the polarising expectations, it really is kind of annoying. So, this makes it into something less commercial and inclusive – people gravitate toward that.”

This year, up to 3,000 photos will be installed with an open invite to anyone crossing the artist’s path to take a picture that tickles their fancy as a nostalgic keepsake. "It is not really about the pictures so much as the engagement and experience, the transformation of the tunnel and the interaction of the viewers and the work. The other work I’m consumed with is more cohesive. Since the audience is allowed to take the pictures, the cohesion deteriorates very rapidly. This makes it easy to not have a permanent, linear theme, and there is always room for me to put in pictures that are peripheral or funny or interesting.”

#LoveTunnelNYC will take place on 14 February, 2015 at the subway tunnel on 14th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue