February 14, 2020
Kansas is, as we all know, mostly flat plains. To the east are famous locales such as Topeka and Kansas City (the Kansas side of town). To the west infamous wild-west locales such as Dodge City. In the middle, though, is the quiet, rolling terrain of the Flint Hills of Kansas. Read more …
December 19. 2019
Western Ohio presents a localized study in the modern American suburban-urban/rural split. Farmland of industrial corn and beans is dotted by shriveling small towns, while suburbia encircles the urban centers of Dayton to the south and Columbus to the east. Read more …
November 5, 2019
West Memphis is in Arkansas, across the river from its better-known Tennessee namesake. And there are family resemblances between the two, principally underfunded governments and endemic poverty, but also the presence of a more affluent, middle class constituency. Like so many other places across America, it can be seen as a microcosm of the country as whole. Read more …
September 25, 2019
With a little imagination, one can see the state of Kentucky as a slightly misshapen stone arrowhead, the point of which lies to the far west of the state. Rather than being known as “The Kentucky Arrowhead” or some such moniker, it is instead known as the Jackson Purchase, so named because it was purchased from the Chickasaw Indians by Andrew Jackson in 1818. Covering just over 3,000 square miles, the region is bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the north and west, and by Kentucky Lake to the east, and it is home to a remarkable population of Americans. Read more …
August 10, 2019
Interstate Magazine photographed El Paso in mid March of this year. Then, on August 3, 2019, a lone shooter opened fire at the Cielo Vista Walmart, killing 22 people and injuring 24 more. Events like this jarringly alter a city, as if the entire population were involved in a high speed car crash. Still, while the El Paso of today undoubtedly feels different from the El Paso photographed this past March, those earlier photographs nonetheless capture the same, ever evolving El Paso. It is a city that wears its Mexican roots unapologetically on its sleeve, integral to the warp and weft of the American tapestry. Read more…
July 4, 2019
In part 1 of this series, we visited the people of Trans Pecos Texas. The exploration of this impossibly boundless American region continues in part 2, exploring the seemingly endless land that forms the backdrop to daily Trans Pecos life.. Read more…
June 28, 2019
To the farthest west of Texas, beyond the Pecos River, is Trans Pecos Texas, the bent elbow of the state. Forming only a part of the whole of Texas, the Trans Pecos defies the basic laws of geometry, seemingly outsizing by itself the whole of Texas combined. This photo journal explores the people inhabiting in this outsized, endless land. Read more…
May 17, 2019
Part 2 of our visit to Louisiana Highway 1 focuses on the southern portion of the highway. Highway 1’s southern stretch winds through the core of America’s sugar can industry, a swath of industrial chemical production, and ultimately into the heart of Cajun country, ending abruptly in the Gulf of Mexico. Read more…
May 1, 2019
Louisiana Highway 1 is to Louisiana what Broadway is the island of Manhattan: a top-left-to-bottom-right byway that traverses a number of neighborhoods of blurred boundaries. Starting in the northwest corner of Louisiana, a tail end of Texas cowboy culture yields to a Louisiana inflected south and seamlessly merges into the distinctive Cajun bayou. This Photo Journal presents the first half of our travels on Highway 1, the northern half. Read more…
March 6, 2019
East St. Louis was once a thriving riverside industrial town, but its fortunes unraveled in the middle of the last century, when industry left and the residential tax base followed. Throughout the city, rundown, abandoned lots form a backdrop to poverty and to crime. Yet while living in East St. Louis is not easy, its people persist. They work, play and carry on, revealing a decidedly determined side of the American Identity. Read more…
updated January 25, 2019
Illinois Highway 37 strings through five counties in southern Illinois. Without stopping to see the sights – not that any sights actually exist for the casual tourist – traversing its entire length would barely require a full afternoon. Yet despite its short stature and modest dress, IL37 reveals a distinctly American scene, utterly hidden from the featureless interstate 57 humming just to the west within constant sight of 37. Read more…
updated October 11, 2018
Bowling as a quintessentially American pastime took root in the early 1950’s and grew through mid-1960’s, when there were approximately 12,000 of these "blue-collar country clubs” throughout the United States. Since then, the number of bowling alleys has steadily declined, dipping to roughly 5,000 as of 2007 and just under 4,700 in 2017. Still, bowling alleys permeate America and remain a cross-sectional institution. Read more…
(These photos are excerpted from the upcoming book, “Bowling the American Dream”)
updated October 7, 2018
Fort Smith is a city of 87,443, located on the western end of the Arkansas River Valley, a valley running across the mid-section of the state. It anchors a population region of 298,592 residents that spans three Arkansas counties and two Oklahoma counties. This median income for a household in the city is $32,157. Read more…