Along Some American Highways

Rating:
Summary: For highway engineers only.
Review: Not quite the usual collection of photos capturing US Interstates, most other photographers always include a few images of abandoned buildings and mechanical detritus along the way and perhaps this is why I was rather disappointed with this book. Andrew Cross focuses rather narrowly on the actual road in many of the sixty-six photos (a possible coffee-table book for highway engineers) and ignores the potential of seeing highways in various weather conditions and at different times of the day other than daytime. I think the two books by Jeff Brouws, 'Highway: America's Endless Dream' (ISBN 1556706049) and 'Readymades: American Roadside Artifacts' (ISBN 0811836770) present a much more exciting view of people, places and things along American's concrete ribbons.

Many of the photos in Cross' book seem rather unimaginatively cropped, either too much sky or too much grass in the foreground, this unfortunately pulls the eye away from interesting parts, a cluster of fast food signs for instance, or some other visually saturated part of a photo. Three photos of a factory, surrounded by a huge parking lot (located at I-75, Exit 69/SR 40, Florida) look very dull and perhaps should have been left out.

The books production was also disappointing, on the (un-numbered) 128 pages there are only sixty-six photos (eleven spreads had two photos) I really can't see a reason for leaving so many blank left-hand pages. I found 'Along Some American Highways' very bland, unfortunate because this area of American life can produce vibrant, powerful imagery.