W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones, #davidgraham, #bringthecamera, #alonetogether, #grahamcrackers, #route66

Graham Crackers are a uniquely American treat created in the mid-nineteenth century by Sylvester Graham, who was a vegetarian and advocate for abstinence (no drinking, no masturbation).  

If the photographer David Graham is related, it is only by blood. He embraces life and is only slightly crackers, although he is mad for the great American Road Trip.  It seems that he has driven all the major highways from Route 66 to the Pacific Coast Highway to US 1 on the Atlantic Coast, returning periodically to his own backyard of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  

My favorite Graham site is in Arizona between the Grand Canyon and Phoenix.  Driving along U.S. Route 17, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, I spotted the “Bring the Camera” rock by the side of the road.  I braked and jumped out of the car.  There it was.  

I felt oddly elated. The site and the paint were older and more weather-beaten than in the photograph, for Graham had photographed it magically. His rock is bigger and better. It’s redder, and the sky is bluer. The horizon is infinite. His image is heroic, a bold declaration to come visit, to explore life, to be present!

David Graham, Zen master. Who knew?

There are many ideas about how street photographers might behave, moving from point A to B, liberated with their light-weight digital 35-millimeter cameras, scrambling all over town, from crowded demonstrations to quieter urban parks to wherever. 

Graham likes people and life and quirky things, the peculiar and unexpected, but he goes slowly. He uses a larger-format camera on a tripod most often, and he seems to have a homing device for locating the unlikely. His Great American Roadside is a “trip," as in a hallucinatory journey for which the AAA doesn’t have a guide.

David Graham is a great American photographer. 

The great part is a given. The American part of that declaration may be superfluous, but it speaks of Graham’s gumption, his initiative and resourcefulness in zeroing in on the spectacular in the everyday on his extended road trip of almost 40 years. 

Look at the titles of his classic books: “Only in America” (1991), “Land of the Free” (1999), “American Beauty” (1987), “Taking Liberties” (2001) and “Declaring Independence” (2004). Next up is certainly Purple Mountain Majesties. On the surface it seems as if the whole oeuvre is a big “fish story” (see the cover of “American Beauty”), except that Graham is The Road Scholar, reporting and not exaggerating. The heart is full an pumping, energizing the journey. These are, for the most part, short tales, post cards home from the road. He brings care and artistry and an unusually keen sense of color to his image making.

The entirety of it is heartfelt and smart storytelling. What seems like a quick glance out the car window is a slower, more plodding, probing look under each rock as he goes, an intuitive inquiry done with an open eye and an appreciation of the unlikely and uncanny. 

His story telling of a couple’s long, idyllic marriage on an island in “Alone Together” is as tender and sharp as Chekhov with the catch in your throat details of notes left behind.  This is the subtext and heartbeat to all of Grahams’s work, his quiet genuineness isn’t always heard.  

He loves signs and murals. “REALLY REALLY GOOD," “BRING THE CAMERA," “BUY NOW PAY LATER," “HAND CAR WASH," “ALMOST PARADISE” and “GOOD LUCK” are the messages left for him to read on the side of the road. Graham brings a wicked and hearty sense of humor to his practice. He sees funny. He sees the irony, the illogical and the crazy balance with grown Shriners in kiddie cars. “A Burger That Ate LA,” Elvis. It’s decent and sweetly, surreally ludicrous. 

You look and keep grinning.

Also, he sees in color. Not enough attention has been paid to Graham’s acute and musical appreciation of color. He finds the rainbow arpeggios at the “No-tell” motels. It is isn’t always the primary colors that beckon. Look at his flood damaged homesites, his abandoned meals, his impersonators in their garish interiors. His work is brighter and is less mannered than that of William Eggleston and Stephen Shore. 

He says that lately he has come to see the structural continuity of his pictures. His basic visual grammar was established early and continues. He did his homework and looked at thousands of photographs suggested to him by colleagues and fellow American photographers Emmet Gowin and Jim Dow. Walker Evans was a major influence. Graham likes a remark attributed to Edward Steichen: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” 

And he hit the road. 

*1 Automobile Club of America who supplied travelers with maps and guides

*2 “America the Beautiful”, patriotic American song, lyrics by Katherine Lee Bates, published by Oliver Ditson & Co. 1910

© 2021

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