About the Portfolio

All these photographs were taken during a two-week road trip from Dallas, Texas to San Francisco, California in September, 1999. Over 13 driving days, a friend and I covered 3,361 miles through 7 states in one of those wallowing, underpowered 2 litre saloons so beloved by US car hire firms. However, we still managed to get a speeding ticket down one of those 14 mile straights across the Nevada basins and be escorted by the Police for 50 miles, so the car occasionally showed an interesting side to its character.

We quickly established a pattern of driving through an afternoon and evening and crashing out in a dive motel somewhere, ready to hit a destination the next morning and take photographs. The average mileage during these afternoons was 258 miles with little preset itinerary other than to reach San Francisco for the flight home. Life on the road across those vast tracts of land in the States quickly became normal and any other kind of existence began to appear strange. Hard driving and regular commentary, occasionally amusing, acquired a certain charm. It was always a pleasure to drive 75 miles through desert or canyons, see very little else on the road and come across a gas pump with a cafe attached in the middle of nowhere. At the risk of sounding pretentious, the sense of space and freedom on that road trip was something I tried to capture in the landscapes I took.

This is a minor selection of 'American Landscapes' I have taken over two road trips now, the other being in Oregon in 1998. A full portfolio will appear soon at my own website at www.photocafe.co.uk under the banner of The Photo Cafe. I hope you like this selection. Any comments to tony@photocafe.co.uk will be very welcome.

These scanned images have been subject to minor pixel repair and sizing on a computer for use on this website. However, they have not been digitally manipulated in any other way and faithfully reflect the original transparencies.