ooamerica: ooa's USA Road Trip

Fifth set of American ‘portraits’ featuring interviewees during the USA road-trip(s): second post of the South, dubbed ‘Deep,’ including Atlanta GA, Alabama, Mississippi and Memphis, and Arkansas.

The following blurb of text is the same for other posts in this American portraits series, spare yourself the second read and please share!

These will serve as way of introduction for some of the interviewees featured in the movie and hopefully give viewers an idea of the demographics encountered – and through that shed light on the possible biases or commonalities in the selection of people met along the road, as well as their answers. Though I sought to interview a wide array of people from different socio-cultural backgrounds, I’m aware of some of the limitations or under-representations in the selection of people featured (ie: fewer women than men were willing to be interviewed on camera, and some ‘types’ of people such as public servants or perhaps more influential people are less likely to give an interview to a road-running stranger driving across the country in a white minivan – nobody should, really).

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Why quote-unquote ‘portraits’?

I hadn’t set out to do a series of photo portraits (though I should have – and will correct this deficiency in future projects) so these were taken on the fly, ‘as a way to get the focus right’ in the seconds before a video interview. And most of these (due to forgetfulness at the time) are simply screenshots from the video interviews. All pictures were treated similarly in LightRoom using a unique adjustment of contrasting and sharpening so please excuse their coarseness – I suppose this is my guilt-felt excuse for the untailored esthetic of these shots.

Featured here, and special thanks to them (city corresponds to where I met them, not always where they’re from):

Atlanta:

-       Gregory, Atlanta GA, unemployed

-       Mushi (?), Atlanta GA, from Israel, involved in Talmudic studies

-       Andar, Atlanta GA, tourist from India

-       Antoine, Atlanta GA, international student

-       Lalla, Atlanta GA, valet and former monk

-       Cortez, Atlanta GA, “thirty six and black and sexy”

-       Andrew, Atlanta GA, restaurant co-owner, survived a coma

-       Anna, Atlanta GA, world traveler and “no one in particular”

Carbon Hill, AL:

-       Lacey, Carbon Hill AL, Pizza guy

-       Daryl, Carbon Hill AL, brick-layer

-       Judy, Carbon Hill AL, loves the Lord

Tupelo and Memphis:

-       Show car driver, Memphis MS

-       Charlene, Memphis MS

-       Christopher, Memphis MS, horse carriage driver

-       Kara, Tupelo MS

-       Jamie, Tupelo MS, works at a bar

-       John, Tupelo MS, has a story untold

-       James, Memphis MS, people should be treated equally

-       Lydia and George, Natchez MS, “C’est la vie…”

Arkansas and Branson, MO:

-       Phil, Little Rock AK, security

-       Robert Smith, Ozarks AK, focused on living

-       Rick, Branson MO, contemplative fisher