American Portrait USA Road Trip Northeast New York Washington DC Philadelphia

And we are back so let’s hit the ground driving with the first set of American ‘portraits’ from the USA road-trip(s): first off, the Northeast.

These will serve as way of introduction for some of the interviewees featured in the movie and hopefully give viewers an idea of the demographics encountered – and through that shed light on the possible biases or commonalities in the selection of people met along the road, as well as their answers. Though I sought to interview a wide array of people from different socio-cultural backgrounds, I’m aware of some of the limitations or under-representations in the selection of people featured (ie: fewer women than men were willing to be interviewed on camera, and some ‘types’ of people such as public servants or perhaps more influential people are less likely to give an interview to a road-running stranger driving across the country in a white minivan – nobody should, really).

Why quote-unquote ‘portraits’?

I hadn’t set out to do a series of photo portraits (though I should have – and will correct this deficiency in future projects) so these were taken on the fly, ‘as a way to get the focus right’ in the seconds before a video interview. And most of these (due to forgetfulness at the time) are simply screenshots from the video interviews. All pictures were treated similarly in LightRoom using a unique adjustment of contrasting and sharpening so please excuse their coarseness – I suppose this is a guilt-felt excuse for the untailored esthetic of these shots.

Featured here, and special thanks to them (city corresponds to where I met them, not always where they’re from):

–       Christie, Washington D.C., historically-garbed volunteer

–       David, Washington D.C., circumcision ban activist

–       Jay, Washington D.C., premium cab service driver

–       Jonathan, Philadelphia, barista

–       Matt, Philadelphia, barista

–       Michael, Philadelphia, law school teacher at Rutgers

–       Richard, New York, highway maintenance supervisor

–       Robert, Washington D.C., White House peace tent activist