A photographer is assigned the task to photograph a particular place, be it Louisiana Highway 1 (all 450 miles of it) or the western arrow-head tip of Kentucky, known as the Jackson Purchase, or simply East Saint Louis, a town of 27,000 in a steady state of depression. She grabs her camera bag, drives, parks, and points her camera at . . . what? What does she photograph to adequately capture the “place” she has been assigned to study? The choices of what to shoot – the shot selection – will largely dictate how a later viewer sees the place, both literally and figuratively, and so before a single choice of composition or camera settings is made, shot selection forcibly decides what the resulting narrative will be.

Interstate Magazine has a clearly articulable goal: to capture the American Identity in photographs. It’s a simple enough premise, but reflect for a moment on the significance of an American identity, and you may be left wondering, in this big country, does such a singular identity exist? Is there an American identity? Interstate Magazine thinks the answer is, in the aggregate, yes, but revealing it is complicated by the shear size and diversity of America. America is vast in both person and place.

America covers more than three million square miles in just its lower 48 states. It is 2,600 miles wide across its mid section. A trip from one side to the other is no ramble to the local supermarket, and a visit to the top from the bottom no breezy day’s outing. Traveling to encounter America is thus no trivial task. So how would one go about doing it?

Interstate Magazine is a photographic journal of American Identity. It exists to photographically show – and in many cases, perhaps, to reintroduce – America to Americans. In so doing, Interstate Magazine hopes to help reverse the dehumanizing effects of contemporary socio-politics. To achieve its goals in a meaningful and lasting way, however, the photographs it publishes must embody Truth, Accuracy, and Respect.

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.