The Dead Highway

Thursday, November 3, 2011

New & Old Work from the Road

These images span the Midwest section of The Lincoln Highway, known to most as US 30. From Joliet, IL all the way to Breezedwood, PA.

Brad's El Camino, Will County, IL 2010

The Old Economy, Will County, IL 2010

Cherry Hill Trailers, New Lenox, IL 2010

Tim & His Dad's Impala, Will County, IL 2010

Village Motel, Breezewood, PA 2011

Kindel Farm, Convoy, OH 2011

Chucks, Everett, PA 2011

Wired, New Lenox, IL 2010

Breezewood, PA 2011

Lincoln Mural, PA 2011

Cheap Smokes, Wheeler, IN 2011

Somewhere in Ohio 2011

Steel Trolley Diner, Lisbon, OH 2011

Photos from the Lincoln Highway

This is the new (and temporary) home of the documentary project The Dead Highway - Images from the Lincoln Highway. Here is a brief description of the project so far.

The aim of The Dead Highway is to document life along the Lincoln Highway, a once historic road that was built to bridge the gap between New York City and San Francisco. The completed project will thoroughly examine the dichotomy of rural America as seen from this coast-to-coast highway. The work deals with affluence and poverty; beauty and ugliness; cities and farms; success and failure, new and old, and everything in between. Providing more questions than answers, these photographs express the central themes of unity and disunity, and propose the overarching question: are we coming together or falling apart? In the purest sense of the classic documentarian, I am not interested in reconciling these views of America, but merely to record them. In doing so I hope the work allows the viewer to examine the truths in each image without being seduced by purely scenic views. This on-going body of work currently focuses on the midwestern section of the Lincoln Highway. With help from the Albert P. Weisman Grant and Columbia College Chicago, the project will continue to grow and serve as a document of the entire highway from Times Square, NY all the way to San Francisco, CA.

Expect to see plenty of updates from the road via this blog in the form of new images and stories along the Lincoln Highway.

-Dan Jarvis

About the work.

The aim of The Dead Highway is to document life along the Lincoln Highway, a once historic road that was built to bridge the gap between New York City and San Francisco. The completed project will thoroughly examine the dichotomy of rural America as seen from this coast-to-coast highway. The work deals with affluence and poverty; beauty and ugliness; cities and farms; success and failure, new and old, and everything in between. Providing more questions than answers, these photographs express the central themes of unity and disunity, and propose the overarching question: are we coming together or falling apart? In the purest sense of the classic documentarian, I am not interested in reconciling these views of America, but merely to record them. In doing so I hope the work allows the viewer to examine the truths in each image without being seduced by purely scenic views. This on-going body of work currently focuses on the midwestern section of the Lincoln Highway. With help from the Albert P. Weisman Grant and Columbia College Chicago, the project will continue to grow and serve as a document of the entire highway from Times Square, NY all the way to San Francisco, CA.