US Route 30

In the Fall of 1995, I was sent to Boise, Idaho on a commercial assignment. When I got off the airplane, I noticed the main highway in town was US Route 30. Since, I grew up in Southern New Jersey, I was familiar with Route 30 in New Jersey. It made me feel close to home to deal with the same road all that way from New Jersey. It also made me start to think about all the sights between Idaho and New Jersey.

When I returned home, I dug out a road atlas and started checking the coarse of route 30. The more I dug, the more I wanted to know. US Route 30 winds from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Astoria, Oregon. After a few months of kicking around the idea in my head, I started to think about driving the whole route, photographing what I found along the road.

All the images in the series were shot from within a few feet of the road. When I did venture off the road somewhat, it was only find "my view" of a subject that I was able to see from the road. I did want to limit myself to what could be seen from the road, and not have this project turn into a travel shoot of the towns on the road. I wanted to limit it to what was within view from the road.

This work was featured in a six page article in Black and White Photography's American Landscape Special Issue published in September of 2003.