American Ocean

Pimp, Day 112, East St. Louis, Illinois.

This month's issue of LFI has a breathtaking collection of photos by Aaron Huey who walked 3349 miles from Encinitas, California to Coney Island, New York with his dog Cosmo and a Leica M6. I've seen quite a few collections of photographs attempting to paint a cohesive portrait of America and I'm prepared to say that if the whole collection are as good as the teaser in LFI, American Ocean blows the rest of them away.

Huey was only 25 when he got sponsored by Kodak and Leica to do this trip. Given that he apprenticed with a National Geographic photographer prior to this project, my more cynical side suspected that he was just a kid with all the right connections and a bit of talent. However, when I started reading the journals he kept while he was on the road it quickly became clear that he's no poseur. Take some time and read them as he has a particular gift for telling the story that he went in search of for 154 days. Anyone who can walk through East St. Louis at any hour of the day isn't just doing this to make a name for himself.

East St. Louis is where you go after 3am to get booze at the drive-thru liquor store where the cashier takes your money with one hand while holding a gun at you with the other hand. The city is so poor and bankrupt that they didn't have garbage collection for at least 5 years. Dead bodies from St. Louis regularly turn up under the highway overpasses. The danger is the same for people of all colours, too. East St. Louis is a place to be avoided in a car and definitely not walked through. I particularly enjoy his astute observation of how close abject poverty and the suburban middle-class are to each other and the jarring reality it creates for those who notice. If Huey could not only walk through unscathed, but make friends and photograph some of them then he is a truly gifted storyteller with his camera and pen.

Day 111 NW St. Louis to South St.Louis

The rest of the day is a series of wrong turns. I walk through a wasteland. 2 hours of abandoned buildings. Empty streets. Where are all the people. Pockets of very rich. Pockets of very poor. Large blocks of deserted buildings. Strange city. Where are the people? Walk under the famous arch. It had to be done, it is the gateway to the East. So an official beginning for the final push. A looooong final push. Walk along the river. It is flooding from a week of rain. Down by the rail yards I walk 2 miles of world class grafitti, 20 feet high and 2 miles long. The most impressive thing I have seen in St.Louis. Worth staying the extra day for this alone. It is a better gallery than any museum here.

I've driven coast-to-coast a dozen or so times and I've driven the length of route 66. You can't get the idea of how vast the US is from an airplane. America isn't the place that is portrayed in the movies no matter how seductive the fantasy. America is a gigantic place in great need of a storyteller like Huey. Apparently no publisher has picked up his book which I find hard to believe since it's just amazing work. I really want to see this collection along with the stories in a finished, bound book.