Dog Days 5 -Road Tripping

..."the air was fresh then. The air was so fresh that it burned like a pure white fire in our lungs. To be in that car with all the family on the way to Gram's house was to be alive. I was one and whole; I was right there and nowhere else in my mind."

from Impossible Vacation, by Spalding Gray


I doubt there is a summer rite of passage as popular, or as well and persistently photographed, as the road trip. In fact, when I started to pull images for this posting, I found myself buried under the huge volume of applicable photographs. If possible, one could probably lay down all the prints of pictures on this subject and create a paper road that would stretch from the West coast all the way back to the East. I'm sure that anyone who views this post could easily conjure up another 100 images and an additional dozen or so photographers that I should have included. It also occurred to me that if you had to define the last 80 years or so of American photography you could accurately describe much of it as one long, mobile, examination of the experience of being mobile in America. Or perhaps the subject is so attractive to photographers for all the obvious reasons. Who wouldn't want to try and recapture the experience of that first auto vacation. That unsettling, yet supremely satisfying, thrill of being in unfamiliar territory accompanied by a bright and momentary flash when mobility morphs into an addiction for the feeling of freedom.


THE DESTINATION



Lee Friedlander



Joel Sternfeld, from American Prospects



William Eggleston, from Los Alamos



Lee Friedlander



William Eggleston, from Los Alamos


THE GAS STATION



Stephen Shore, from Uncommon Places



George Tice



William Eggleston



William Eggleston, from Ancient and Modern



Henry Wessel



Robert Frank, from The Americans



THE CAR



Joel Sternfeld, from American Prospects



William Eggleston



William Eggleston, from Faulkner's Mississippi



Lee Friedlander, from Self Portraits



Gary Winogrand



Robert Frank, from The Americans



Robert Frank, from The Americans



Robert Frank, from The Americans



Robert Frank, from The Americans



Robert Frank, from The Americans



Walker Evans


THE ROAD



Joel Sternfeld, from American Prospects



Lee Friedlander



William Eggleston, from Los Alamos



Lee Friedlander



Robert Frank, from The Americans