In God we trust?

Travelling through The United States of America from around 2016, I set about trying to find the place I’d always imagined, Painted for me over the course of my life through music, popular culture, photography, film and literature, the list could go on. Unravelling the preconceptions, daydreams and realities I had decided formed a picture of what this bold, expansive, highly desirable country had to offer I found something missing.

They say you should never meet your heroes.

I will freely admit to skimming across the surface - not staying anywhere long enough to form any kind of accurate picture of a place - but that’s what travel is. A glimpse. A taste. A raw first impression - without the embellishment of human connection or theoretical bias. My pictures are snap shots - informed by some of my favourite artists; Eggleston, Winogrand, Meyerowitz and Friedlander, photographed on a small camera from where ever I found myself - without purpose or endeavour. Focused only on the things that felt to me like a parallel experience of being there.

I was on assignment when I took most of these pictures - and have been visiting the U.S for a couple of decades - but my awareness of the place didn’t really kick in until the scab of extreme politics was ripped off by the last Republican president. I was no longer travelling in a fever dream of Americana but in a cold crystalline reality. This is the America I observed. It’s not a complete picture but a small visual reaction over a very small period of time.