• Roadmap: A summary of where Interstate Magazine is now and where it is headed next
• Work in Progress: A peek at a Cross Section photo journal on the American subdivision
• A Photographer You Should Know: F.D. Walker, Photographing 100 Cities around the World
• The Editor’s Note: Truth, Accuracy and Respect in Photography

ROADMAP

You’ve found Interstate Magazine and signed-up for this newsletter, so chances are good you already know what Interstate Magazine is all about: it’s a Photographic Journal of American Identity. What that means in the context of a country spanning 3.8 million square miles and counting 325 million inhabitants is itself a daunting question, fodder for many, many future blog posts. For now, however, a simpler question: where is Interstate Magazine now, at its inception, and where is it going?

First, the present. Interstate Magazine has an (unpaid) staff of one, acting as both chief cook and bottle washer – photographer, editor and publisher, that is. The magazine exists exclusively online for the moment, with periodic updates. As time passes, we will settle into a more regular online publishing schedule. Works right now focus primarily on Places and secondarily on Cross Sections (you can find an explanation of these and other magazine sections here).

Second, the future, which includes two imperatives, photographers and print.

The first priority for the future is bringing new photographers into the fold. Additional photographers are critical, certainly, to expand the magazine’s scope of coverage (again, America is a country of 3.8 million square miles, 325 million people). We simply need more photographers to cover this vastness.

More importantly, though, we need additional photographers to expand the photographic perspective of the magazine. Every photographer – indeed, every person – perceives the world from a unique, personal perspective. Photographers’ works reflect that individuality, sometimes subtly, some more overtly. (For a good example of this, see the work of F.D. Walker, a photographer you should know.) Interstate Magazine must have multiple perspectives to succeed. Hence, the need to add new, additional photographers to our ranks.

Finally, print is the ultimate goal for Interstate Magazine. Why print? First and foremost, because it is tangible and gives weight – literally and figuratively – to the subject at hand. It also comprises photographic prints, not merely ephemeral, flickering on-screen images, gone as quickly as they arrived. The American Identity found in these photos may change, but at this moment in history, they are real, and they deserve to be memorialized in a lasting medium for future generations. Thus, print.

^ top

WORK IN PROGRESS

Cross Section, along with Place, is one of the principal sections of Interstate Magazine. Cross Section aims the camera not at any particular geographic area of America – that’s Place – but instead focuses on some aspect of America found across geographic places. The most recently completed Cross Section is Bowling, a look at the American bowling alley. In the works now is a look at the contemporary American Subdivision. Carved from farmland, these communities have formed American suburbia from the end of World War II to the present day.

^ top

INTRODUCTION TO FORREST "F.D." WALKER, A PHOTOGRAPHER YOU SHOULD KNOW

Forrest “F.D.” Walker started his adult life in finance, working in the world of cubicles and “6 x 6 walls.” His passion for photography eventually overtook his work-a-day life, and he embarked on an audacious five year project to photograph life in the streets of 100 cities around the world.

Much like the work contained in Interstate Magazine, F.D. Walker photographs people going about their everyday life. His saturated and high contrast style simultaneously emphasizes strong, well lit colors and the deepest, darkest of blacks. Content-wise, his photographs reveal a human interconnectedness lying just below the surface of the day-to-day that can be, at times, a bit unsettling.

You can find more about F.D. Walker and his work on his website.

^ top

Interstate Magazine’s photographs seek to capture ordinary Americans in ordinary situations. In so doing, the hope is to show Americans to Americans, helping to bridge the sociopolitical divide cleaving America. But what if the photographs have the opposite effect? After all, we have all seen photographic meme after meme that denigrates, derides and divides. How does Interstate Magazine avoid this trap? Three words: accuracy, truthfulness and respect. We discuss what it means to be accurate, truthful and respectful in the context of photography in a recent blog post.

^ top