All American: Barbara Dijkhuis & Auke Vleer

The book All American is best described here:

"That most American of activities, the cross-country road trip, is here appropriated by two Dutch artists who set out to understand the United States in a way they never could through advertisements. From Los Angeles to New York, photographer Auke Vleer and designer Barbara Dijkuis traveled 8,000 kilometers (or 5,000 miles, depending on your point of view) over backroads and through small towns, documenting the landscapes, places and people they met along the way. A map that cleverly folds open from the cover of the book documents their journey. Through 750 images, laid out geographically from West Coast to East, the artists put the reader in the back seat, showing her America through their eyes."

I have looked at this book to see how the photographers have formed a mixture of styles and genres to form a series of work on the Road Trip subject, which is similar to what I have done. Hopefully by researching this book I can see what works and what doesn't.

This work is especially relevant to my own, as it combines typology, individual portraits and landscapes to portray the essence of their journey. This is, in effect, what I am trying to do, but add a personal element to the work. I have tried to include a selection of their images which best represent their work, but the whole book forms a narrative of their trip very well. I find this inspiring, and this work has given great influence to my own work and book production.

The artists have also included themselves in the book in the form of a set of images at the back, take of them photographing their subjects: