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Matt Eich “Carry Me Ohio”
Extreme poverty due to a steady decline in once prevalent natural resources in Appalachia.
Dominic Nahr “In This Forgotten City”
How Detroit has dealt with steady economic decline first in their own city, then escalated by a nationwide recession.
Justin Maxon “In God We Trust”
The people of Chester, Pennsylvania and their extreme focus on faith in the face of consistent hardship.
John Francis Peters “Just a Dream, America's Foreclosed Homes”
The remnants and leftover ephemera of foreclosed homes in upstate New York.
Alex Welsh “Hunter's Point”
Hunters Point San Francisco, California, after its total loss of the shipping industry that built the community.
Lisa Wiltse “Children Of The Colonias”
Two families in an impoverished settlement on the Texas side of the US/Mexico border.
Daryl Peveto "American Nomads"
Living off the grid in Slab City, Southern California.
Peter van Agtmael
Much of photographer Peter van Agtmael's work thus far has focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, incomprehensible situations that he's made more human through an uncommon intimacy with those wars' soldiers. This past year, van Agtmael took that same approach on a series of American road trips. He shot the conditions of the country and its people as he found them, not as they had been reported to him by the media, photographing people with an uncommon eye and inherent sensitivity. The windy after effects of President Obama’s inauguration, a newborn baby in Brooklyn, the untouched bedroom of a soldier killed in action, a mermaid aquarium in Florida: each represents what van Agtmael finds to be a boundless and fascinating country. This slideshow of images from his feature in our Photo Special issue is randomly ordered each time you play it, and is soundtracked by snippets of the radio, sounds of music and speech, slivers of the American experience, just like his photos.
Victoria Sambunaris
Victoria Sambunaris’ photos are enormous landscapes, but her intent is not merely to document America's mammoth scope. Photographing often in the American West, where space can feel infinite, Sambunaris carefully chooses parcels of terrain that speak volumes of our constant struggle for growth and survival. Where at first you see a craggy mountain, a second look reveals the huddled village at its base, populated by the people tasked with removing its resources; a vast plane is bisected by a highway; an ancient ruin merely a terraced copper mine. In our Photo Special issue, we ran Sambunaris’ photos across large spreads to give them their proper space. In this corresponding web feature, use Zoomify to narrow in on the details, truly getting a textured view of the photos topography.
