Roadbook

2015
PURCHASE

“The road has taught me what I know today. These are the stories I have waited to tell.”

Roadbook is a magnificent work by one of the most important emerging documentary photographers in America. Hunter’s beautiful and sensitive photographs document aspects of American culture and communities ignored by the mainstream and his artistic gaze focuses on the faces of proud groups of people who are consistently misrepresented in the modern American narrative. “For years I’ve traveled with my cameras capturing moments of time with the people the road has led to me.”

Hunter’s photographs flash us into moments and scenes most people will never get to experience first-hand during their lifetime. Hunter cherishes the friendships he builds with people who recognize his sincerity and allow him access to their private worlds. After establishing their trust over meaningful dialogue and shared experiences, he frames his subjects as they are and where they dwell. As Nathaniel Kilcer writes in his foreword, “Great photographs might be the hope, but Hunter leads with modest curiosity, expectation suspended, the journey his calling. He seeks out forgotten quarters and the stories concealed there.” Hunter also shoots exclusively in black and white film, “In the end, film provides a fitting metaphor for Hunter’s entire process: it takes a long time to earn the trust of these people, and it takes time to commit them to paper.”