A/G EDITORS

ERIN CHAPMAN is North Florida through and through. A multimedia journalist and an Emmy-nominated TV producer, she worked for over 10 years in public broadcasting on programs such as Frontier House, Nature, Wide Angle, Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly, and PBS Need to Know. She’s also been an interactive game and web video producer for History Detectives and America Revealed on PBS.

She’s currently a New Media Specialist at the American Museum of Natural History and the co-editor/founder of THE AMERICAN GUIDE. She lives in New York.

TOM McNAMARA is American by birth, Minnesotan by the grace of God. A multimedia journalist and an award-winning web producer, he’s worked for the last six years in public broadcasting. Programs include: Wide Angle, PBS NewsHour, History Detectives, and PBS Need to Know. His work has also appeared on NPR.

He’s currently a freelance digital producer and the co-editor/founder of THE AMERICAN GUIDE. He lives in New York.

Click here for more on The American Guide; click here to become an American Guide; or click here to submit a dispatch from your state.

CITY, STATE & REGIONAL GUIDES

Louisiana Guide DARIN ACOSTA has spent his entire life exploring and documenting the wetlands, oil infrastructures, and forgotten blight of South Louisiana. He studied urban and environmental planning at the University of New Orleans, where he wrote his thesis on how Louisiana’s petro-chemical industry influences urbanization patterns. He makes maps and glazes windows for fun and profit.

Along with fellow Louisiana Guide Breonne DeDecker, Darin is currently working on The Airline is a Very Long Road, an experimental biography of Louisiana. It can be viewed at airlinehighway.tumblr.com.

Guide to New York and New Jersey, MARTINA ALBERTAZZI, was born and raised in Rome, Italy. During the past five years she has moved back and forth between Italy and the United States — there traveling from coast to coast. In 2011, she moved here permanently and is now based in New York City, but travels often to Virginia to visit her boyfriend. She works as a freelance photographer and writer. Other than photography, her biggest interests are: her dog Ugo, people, good food, good wine and books.

Follow her on Tumblr at martina-albertazzi.tumblr.com.

EE BERGER is a Guide to Detroit and Brooklyn. Born in Michigan, she lived in Detroit after graduating with a BFA in Photography from The College for Creative Studies. Feeling the need to explore beyond her favorite state, Berger moved to Brooklyn in 2009 where she now resides. She is in equal love with both Detroit and Brooklyn and tries to spend time back in Michigan as much as possible, considering herself a permanent Detroiter temporarily in Brooklyn. She was selected as one of the 30 Women Photographers Under 30 in 2013 for Photoboite. She likes empty spaces and quiet moments.

Follow her on Tumblr at eeberger.tumblr.com or on her website, eebergerphoto.com.

NATE BURBECK is a State Guide to Minnesota and an At-Large Guide to the Midwest. He’s an artist from Minneapolis who travels the country taking panoramic landscape photos to use as the basis for his paintings. He’s also been named one of “Ten Artists to Watch in 2013” on the Walker Art Center’s mnartists blog.

Follow Nate’s work on Tumblr at nburbeck.tumblr.com or on his website. Nate also curates a couple of very cool regionally-themed art tumblrs - beyond 9th avenue (northeastern artists), fly over art (midwestern artists), and in the new frontier (western artists).

AARON CANIPE is a State Guide to North Carolina. He was born and raised in Hickory, North Carolina. He received his BFA in photography from the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, D.C. Aaron also helps operate Empty Stretch, a DIY-publisher and blog, with friends Jordan and Nate. He’s exhibited work throughout the South and has been published in the Washington Post and the Oxford American’s “Eye on the South” blog.

Follow him on Tumblr at mysteriesmanners and see more work on his website, aaroncanipe.com.

DAN CARUSO is a Guide to Illinois and Wisconsin. He grew up in Wisconsin and moved to Chicago to get his masters degree in architecture. He currently works as a project manager for a small local architecture firm, is trying to break into real estate, and wishes he was a photographer. Taking up photography as a hobby a couple summers ago he uses his weekend afternoons to explore his neighborhood and surrounding area in the outer regions of the Northwest Side of Chicago. He also has a undying interest in all things Wisconsin.

You can see Dan’s photographs on flickr and his tumblr page, jonnyoptimo.tumblr.com. He also likes to keep his trigger finger loose on instagram.

The features staff of the CASPER STAR-TRIBUNE - editor Kristy Gray, outdoors reporter Christine Peterson, and reporter Benjamin Storrow - are State Guides to Wyoming. The Casper Star-Tribune is Wyoming’s only statewide newspaper and the features team travels across Wyoming telling stories about people, places, and trends.

You can follow the adventures of the features folks at tribfeatures.tumblr.com and find the Star-Tribune at www.trib.com.

New England Guide MICHAEL CEVOLI was born and raised in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. He moved to Providence, Rhode Island in 2000 to attend the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). After completing his BFA in Photography in 2004, he taught high school photography outside of Boston and completed a documentary project looking at various historically important prison designs around the United States. In 2007, he returned to RISD to earn a MFA in Photography, and has since worked as an editorial and commercial photographer. His work as been shown throughout New England, New York City and Europe and is currently in a variety of museum and private collections both nationally and internationally.

Cevoli lives and works out of a sea shanty on Narragansett Bay. Follow him on Tumblr at michaelcevoli or on his website, MichaelCevoli.com.

Montana State Guide CHRIS CHAPMAN was born and raised in the fields of Indiana, spent time in Michigan, California, Washington and Maryland, but has called Montana home since the days before it had speed limits or open container laws. Now married with two young kids, he documents family friendly adventures: canoeing, fly fishing, hunting, hiking and camping, throughout the state.

Chapman’s Tumblr home is j-appleseed.tumblr.com. His other web home is ChrisChapmanPhotography.net

SUSAN COHEN is a State Guide to South Carolina. A staff writer for the Charleston City Paper, she’s visited strip clubs, played quidditch and homebrewed for the award-winning alternative weekly.

Follow her on Tumblr at SusanJCohen.com.

New England Guide JON CREAMER is a teacher and photographer, currently on sabbatical from the Groton School in Groton, MA, and is based in Providence, RI.

Follow on Tumblr at years-of-indiscretion.tumblr.com or on his website, joncreamer.com.

Louisiana Guide BREONNE DEDECKER was born near the headwaters of the Mississippi River and now resides at the end of it. She received her BFA in photography at the University of Georgia, and an MA in Sustainable Development, focusing on the US labor economy, from Brandeis University. Too much of her youth was spent in vans travelling across the country with punk bands, resulting in a deep obsession with long drives and unfamiliar destinations.

She is currently working with fellow Louisiana Guide, Darin Acosta on The Airline is a Very Long Road, an experimental biography of Louisiana that can be viewed at airlinehighway.tumblr.com. 

At-Large Guide to the West LYNN DOWNEY is a second-generation Californian on her father’s side and her mother was from Arkansas, so she has spent her life trying to choose between sourdough bread and cornbread.

A writer and archivist, her work has appeared in California History, Pacific Historian, The Public Historian, and Etude: New Voices in Literary Nonfiction, among others. She has also authored and/or edited eight books. Her most recent work, Wickenburg: Images of America, was published in January of 2012 and was named an Arizona Centennial Legacy Project.

She lives in Sonoma, California. Follow her work on her website, LynnDowney.com.

STEPHEN DYER is a State Guide to Pennsylvania. He was born in Houston, TX in 1983 and Raised in Reading, PA. At a young age he discovered skateboarding and punk rock and was always looking at the pages of Thrasher and punk zines and was instantly hooked to photography. He picked up a camera and it’s been glued to his hands ever since. Stephen attended Antonelli Institute in Philadelphia where he currently resides. He always has a camera and is in constant search of something or someone to photograph. 

Follow him on Tumblr at thebrokentooth.

BRANDON GETTY is a State Guide to California, specifically the Central Valley region and his home city of Stockton. Though a student of literature, his true passion is photography and the documentary approach. When he’s not scanning film and obsessing about upcoming projects, he can be found skateboarding, dry-firing his cameras or eating Mongolian barbecue with his girlfriend Sarah.

His photography has been featured on Fecal Face, One Giant Arm, Svar Bookazine and Jess e la Moda. His work has also shown in several local exhibitions.

Follow Getty on Tumblr at Maps to Stockton, on blogspot at Shooting Daggers, or on his Carbonmade Portfolio.

JUSTIN HAMEL is a Guide to the Northeast Region. His wanderlust should come as no surprise. Growing up his family crisscrossed the country, calling over 12 cities home before he struck out on his own. Now a (sometimes proud, sometimes hesitant) resident of Boston, Hamel never turns down a travel opportunity. Look for him in a car, on a bike, hopping a train, piloting a plane or with his thumb out by the side of the road. He’ll be the one with a film camera around his neck.

Follow him on Tumblr at jmhamel or on his website, JustinMHamel.com.

JOHN LUSK HATHAWAY is a State Guide to South Carolina and an At-Large Guide to the Southeast. He was born in Memphis Tennessee, and recently lived in Bali Indonesia—so acclimating to the sweltering summers of the Lowcountry hasn’t been a problem. When he isn’t making pictures with old film cameras or burping a baby, he enjoys playing clawhammer banjo and surfing at Folly Beach.

Hathaway lives in Charleston, South Carolina. Follow him on Tumblr at johnluskhathaway or on his website, JohnLuskHathaway.com.

NICK JOJOLA is a State Guide to California and the Southwest. Follow him on Tumblr at nhjojola and shotonthespot and on Twitter.

DAVID JONES is a State Guide to Mississippi and a Professor in that great state. While going to school, he lived in five of the Souther states, from Virginia to Texas. His career path has landed him in some pretty remote places, but has also allowed him to meet some amazing people and see some astonishing things. Currently, he can be found traveling the highways and back roads of Mississippi, helping people out when he can and exploring the hidden treasures of the state.

Follow him on Tumblr at woodprof.tumblr.com.

Guide to North Carolina BRITTANY KEARNS was born and raised in New Jersey before moving to North Carolina and falling in love. Now happy to be an honorary Southerner, she lives thirty miles outside Raleigh in rural Chatham County, where she is renovating a farmhouse with her husband and two dogs. Combining over a decade of experience and a degree in anthropology, Brittany prefers a documentary style, shooting the world and people around her. Her old Pentax is her right-hand gal, and she’d take film over digital any day.

You can check out her portfolio at BrittanyKearns.com or catch up with her on Tumblr at thebeekearns.tumblr.com.

Maine State Guide BRETT KLEIN lives in Connecticut and works in New York, but prefers small town life and his homestate of Maine. Any chance to get rural is a mental vacation. For work he drives and flies all across the nation, but time in the driver’s seat criss-crossing New England and upstate New York is reason to bring along a camera to document the cracks on the face of America.

Follow Klein on Tumblr at The Coast is Clear. His curatorial collection of Americana, rural life, other artists and ephemera can be seen on Tumblr at Tons of Land.

KEN KORNACKI is a State Guide to Wisconsin. Follow him on Tumblr at aurum-design or on his website, aurum-design.com.

Your State Guide to Hawaii is JORDAN LUM, who hails from Honolulu. Born in 1991, he’s a sushi-rolling, self-motivated, freelance photographer. He shoots film and digital. He enjoys shooting the streets and the people in them, as well as landscapes, friends, and family. He’s more than happy to take your picture, too.

Peep his work at leafybug.tumblr.com or on flickr.

MICHAEL MARCHIO is a State Guide to Texas. A Minnesota native, his work has appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minnesota Public Radio. He enjoys World War II trivia, daytime drinking and riding the tractors at Machinery Hill come state fair time in his home state.

Sam Houston said that “all new states are invested, more or less, by a class of noisy, second-rate men who are always in favor of rash and extreme measures, but Texas was absolutely overrun by such men.” Marchio believes he is proving Sam’s point.

He lives in Austin, Texas.

BRITTANY MARCOUX is a State Guide to Rhode Island and an At-large Guide to the Northeast. Born and raised in New England with a strong desire to always be on the go, she has traveled across this grand ol’ country six times in the past five years. What did she learn? Once a New Englander…alwaysss a New Englander.

She spends her days working at a photography print lab called iolabs and her nights dreaming about her next big adventure across the country with her husband. (They spent their honeymoon traveling the US for two-weeks searching for Stephen Shore locations to re-photograph.)

Follow Marcoux on Tumblr at brittanymarcoux or on her on-going Stephen Shore photo project.

ALEX MATZKE is a State Guide to Nebraska. Born in Omaha in 1985, growing up her friends showed livestock at State Fair; she showed photographs. On the occasion of her 13th birthday her father presented her with a 20 gauge shotgun. Although hunting doesn’t occupy her free-time these days, she thinks it’s important to know where your food comes from.

Follow Matzke on Tumblr at alexmatzke and alzke or on her website, AlexMatzke.com.

MICHAEL MCCRAW is a State Guide to Georgia and an At-Large Guide to the Southeast. He’s a photographer who’s spent his whole life in the South. Originally from Pace, FL and currently living in Atlanta, GA, he’s lived and worked in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. He spent his late teenage years touring around the country in a band. When he’s not photographing or writing you can find him with his family or stocking shelves at his work.

Follow his work on Tumblr or at his website.

TAMMY MERCURE is a State Guide to Tennessee. A photographer living in Bristol, Tennessee, she enjoys photographing just about any event that includes loud noises and fast moving things. She was recently named one of the “100 under 100: The New Superstars of Southern Art” by Oxford American magazine.

Follow her on Tumblr or on her website, TammyMercure.com.

JONATHAN MILLER is our Guide to Detroit, the city where he lives and works as a hotel maintenance manager. He is a two time college drop-out that studied photography, political science, and urban studies. He spends free time with his wife and two kids, photographing, playing in his basement darkroom, drawing, and basically slacking off. “You know that thing you broke at that hotel, I fixed it.”

His photography is on tumblr at detroitmaintenanceman and everything else is at his website, detroitmaintenance.

Guide to Wyoming KC O’CONNOR was born and raised an enthusiastic satirist in the suburbs of North Carolina, but couldn’t wait to explore the Wild West.

By camper and with camera, this self-proclaimed Roads Scholar travels the American West as a freelance writer and photographer. Not content with the views from paved scenic overlooks, his singular micro-travelogue style documents the remote desert and mountain locations he seeks out by way of overland vehicle, horseback, canoe, snowmobile and hiking boots.

He lives with his family in Lander, Wyoming. Follow him on Tumblr at kcowyo.

At-Large Guide to the West JAMES ORNDORF was born in Minnesota, but knew at a very young age that the future lay out west. He is currently photographing and illustrating outside of Durango, Colorado.

You can see what he’s up to at inlandwest.tumblr.com and roughshelter.com.

MISSY PRINCE is a Guide to the far-flung states of Mississippi and Oregon. She grew up in Mississippi but calls Oregon home. She loves her Oregon, Washington, and Mississippi Gazetteer atlases and aims to visit every square mile they chart. When she is not out exploring with a camera she is dreaming of the highways, roads, and trails in her future.

Follow Prince on Flickr and Tumblr at Sea of Empties.

AMADEE RICKETTS is an At-Large Guide to the West. She’s worked as a cemetary groundskeeper, a shoeshine valet, and a bill collector. More recently, she’s been a children’s librarian in five states. She takes a lot of pictures and lives near Durango, CO.

You can see her photos at textless.tumblr.com.

State Guide to Washington and Idaho MARY ROTHLISBERGER is a thinker, writer, reader, hide-and-go-seeker finder situated in the hinterland of North America. She hails from the border town of Palouse, Washington and spends most of her days taking the long way home back and forth across America. She loves small towns, long winters, optimists, parades, and the United States Postal Service.

Keep up with her projects at bang! bang! boomerang and see where she’s been sending mail at GOD BLESS THE USPS.

Tennessee State Guide LINDSAY SCOTT is an East Nashville based photographer, writer, drinker and ponderer. Born in Memphis, Scott at an early age took an observer’s role to her surroundings, only 25 years later to earn her B.S. (interpret as you will) from Middle Tennessee in Anthropology. A joke teller and riddle sayer, Lindsay’s sense of “lightness” is often shared in work, covering dark topics with a jester’s grin. You can find her on any random night, porch sitting with a side of story telling and a camera in hand.

Follow her on Tumblr at lindsayscottphotography.tumblr.com or on her website, lindsayscottphoto.com.

JORDAN SMITH is the Guide to Ephemeral America. An avid collector of 20th century ephemera, he started scanning and posting his finds online in 2008 and became obsessed. Since then, he’s had images featured in documentaries, tv shows, museums, books, magazines, several prominent newspapers, and NPR.

He works for the University of Notre Dame during the day and scans at night. He lives in South Bend, Indiana.

Follow him on Flickr, his blog, and several Tumblr sites (The Pie Shops, Cardboard America, 73s & 88s, Color Transparency, Expos and World’s Fairs, Skate Your Date!, Have Fun Go Bowling!).

JONATHAN TARLETON is a City Guide to New York. He was schooled in Georgia and North Carolina before moving on to denser pastures in Brooklyn. He currently helps out at Urban Omnibus where he researches and writes about the policy, art, peculiarities, and movements that make New York City so enticingly combative. He likes to be outside and to make things, preferably concurrently.

Follow him on Tumblr at jttarleton.tumblr.com.

California State Guide UC RESEARCH tells the stories of the innovative research emerging from the University of California. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter and on Tumblr at ucresearch.tumblr.com.

New York City Guide LYDIA WHITE was born on the 4th of July and has been an independent spirit ever since. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she moved to Brooklyn in 2010. When not working as an interactive art director, she spends her free time exploring what NYC and the surrounding areas have to offer. White has been photographing interesting people and unusual landscapes for nearly a decade.

Follow her on Tumblr at lydia makes pictures or on her website, LydiaWhitePhotography.com.  

New Hampshire State Guide HENRY WALTERS lives at the end of a long dirt road in the southern part of the state. In the fall he spends around 600 hours on Pack Monadnock, watching and counting migratory birds.

You can find his writing about these hours at hawkcount.org.

Vermont State Guide TARA WRAY was born and raised in Manhattan, Kansas, but now calls the Green Mountain State home. A photographer and award-winning documentary filmmaker (but mainly a mom of two-year-old identical twin sons), she is drawn to photography as a means to combat the otherwise general and fleeting nature of life. Her favorite things to photograph include livestock, dogs in cars, and rainy, people-less landscapes.

Follow Wray on Tumblr at Tara Wray Photography. Film information can be found on Facebook, or rent her first movie on Netflix.