- Update: The Place Photo Journal covering Illinois Highway 37 has been updated with thirteen additional photographs.
- Work in Progress: The Lot, a Cross Section Photo Journal exploring the American used car lot.
- Roadside Assistance: It's all who you know (and what you know, too), and it can help Interstate Magazine.
- A Photographer You Should Know: Wim Wenders.
- The Editor’s Note: Identity and the Vastness of America.
UPDATE
Interstate Magazine introduced Illinois 37, a state highway that strings through five counties in southern Illinois, back in October. We've updated the photo journal, adding thirteen more photos that reveal more of this distinctly American byway.
WORK IN PROGRESS
In 2017, Americans bought more than 39 million used cars. Used car lots, dotting the country like mud spattered on the side of a Jeep, are as varied as the communities they serve. Some offer hundreds of cars sprawled over acres of tarmac, announced to the world by radiating strings of flapping pennants and floating helium balloons. Others comprise little more than a shack on a patch of grass marked by a small sign. All are inhabited by the often maligned used car salesmen, who in truth are as varied as the lots they populate. Interstate Magazine is working on capturing this diverse and colorful world in photographs, revealing another face of the American identity. Check out this sneak peek of the work in progress.
ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE
It's not what you know, it's who you know – at least that's what they say. But if you would like to help Interstate Magazine, then the old saying is most certainly true (and it's also true that what you know matters, too). Let us know if you could introduce us to anyone who:
- Lives or works in the "Jackson Purchase", the arrow-tip of western Kentucky.
- Owns, manages or works for a used car dealership.
- Builds, sells or has recently moved into a suburban/exurban/rural subdivision.
As for the "what you know", get in touch if you have an idea for a geographic locale we should visit and photograph for a Place Photo Journal, or for any American sub-culture or institution for a Cross Section Photo Journal. We are always looking for ideas.
Finally, know a photographer who would like to shoot for the magazine? Let us know that, too.
Drop us a line at editors@interstatemagazine.com.
INTRODUCTION TO WIM WENDERS, A PHOTOGRAPHER YOU SHOULD KNOW
Paris Front Lawn
Depending on who you ask, Wim Wenders will most likely be described to you as either a photographer or a film maker. True, he is perhaps best known in the US for his film Paris, Texas, a 1984 film starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, and Nastassja Kinski. But as first-rate as his films are, his photographic work is, perhaps, even more compelling.
Wim came to the American southwest from his home in Germany in the early 1980's to scout locations for Paris, Texas. On these scouting ventures, Wim became enamored with the unexpected desolation and empty beauty subsisting in the spaces of southwestern life. His photographs, taken largely as part of his location scouting, are in many ways photographs of people unseen. They echo the silence of the recently departed, depicting an American humanity despite its literal absence.
Wim's photographs of the southwest from this time period were collected in a book entitled Written in the West and later in an updated edition entitled Written in the West, Revisited. You can find more about Wim Wenders and his work on his website.
EDITOR'S NOTE: IDENTITY AND THE VASTNESS OF AMERICA
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. Read more in a recent blog post.