About the Project:
In 2013, upon earning my Master of Fine Arts, I unveiled my thesis project: a photography journey from Chicago to Santa Monica along the iconic Route 66. This endeavor aimed to juxtapose vintage postcard images with the contemporary current-day photos I created of this historic route, culminating in a deeply immersive visual narrative. The Mother Road Revisited consists of about 100 photographs taken in the 1950s, which I have paired with photographs I shot along modern-day Route 66, many taken as I traveled the route in my revamped 1964 Shasta. The biggest hurdle I have encountered is finding where each historic photograph was taken and setting up my own shot from the same vantage point. I then study the differences between the old photograph and my view before combining the two pictures into a single image that shows the scene's new parts and vintage aspects. The resulting collage dramatizes the transformations that have shaped the Route over the years: once one-way streets now show two-way traffic, and swimming pools brimming with guests have given way to abandoned lots. This project is an effort to show what America has done to its once-booming American symbol, the “Mother Road.”
Interested in seeing how Tulsa looks through the Mother Road Revisited lens? Check out my magcloud of it.
The handmade map from the show.
Here are some other videos from the journey:
These are some examples of the project installed:
