thechrisproject photography

I saw these on A Photo Editor a little while ago and I’ve watched them (the second one in particular) over and over since then. Very appropriate for anybody engaged in any type of creative work.

What he says about having good taste but ability that falls short of the taste rings true with me. I’m in that stage. It’s comforting to know that lots of people (everyone?) goes through it. Though I think my taste could use improvement as well.

A few months ago I read about Jake Stangel’s Transamerica project. About a month after reading Jörg’s post, Jake sent me an email and I asked him to do an interview. After many delays on my part, here it is. All images in this post are by Jake Stangel.

Tell me about your road trips. Why did you take them?

A lot of people have been under the assumption I did the trips on my own, but I actually rode with a non-profit group that raises money for affordable housing, primarily Habitat For Humanity. There are 30 riders on a route, and we each raise $4,000 to participate; we also volunteer about once a week on build sites. So we spend about 8 weeks total in this cycle of riding 6 days, then stopping to build for a day. There are three ‘days off’ on the entire trip, where we’re neither biking or building. The lifestyle on the road is like a strong river current- you get swept in, and have to just roll with it. It’s a very exhausting, but constantly invigorating way of living. A constant rush of endorphins, wind to your face, expansive scenery, answering lots of questions about when the hell 30 identically-dressed bicyclists are doing riding through small-town X, USA.


When I decided to do my first trip, I was a junior in college at NYU, a huge biker, and wanted to have a constructive summer that would have a positive impact on the country and myself. When I heard about the trip, run by an organization called Bike & Build, everything clicked in my brain and I knew it was something I had to do. The first trip was everything I could have every hoped for, and the second I hit the Pacific, I knew I had to do it again. Coincidentally, the two trips had the most symbiotic relationship with my shooting Transamerica- doing these rides made for a perfect opportunity to create a project, and the project was a perfect opportunity to heighten my observations while on the road.

What was it like biking and building for 8 weeks with a 4×5 camera with you? Did you develop any film while on the trip to check your progress, or did you just wait until the end?

This was a supported ride, which meant that we had a 15 passenger behemoth of a van to carry our duffel bags, food, and other group items. I kept my 4×5 field camera, a Toyo 45A, stowed in the van with a small gitzo tripod I bought my last day living in New York, off craigslist, from a Frenchman who had bought it during an extended tour of Europe in the 80’s. So that thing has seen more of the world that I have. The setup can be seen here.


The camera and holders (I had 4, 8 sheets total) fit in that small beige bag. I had one 210mm lens. Most of the 4×5s were taken at the end of the day or in the morning, off the bike. A handful of shots were taken during rides, when we met up with the van for lunch. I did the best I could to keep the film cool, but it’s so far from ideal, especially in the summer. I ended up packing my extra film in the middle of all my clothes to help shield the heat. Despite being on the road for 2+ months with wild fluctuations in temperature, the colors and saturation of my shots seem pretty unaffected. No changing bag. I just had to wait to find a building with a dark room every 5-8 days. Bathrooms, basements or janitor’s closest work best. Most random place I ever had to change film was a in the snack bar of a high school!


I just had two boxes- a 50pack of fresh film and a box for exposed shots. It was simple, but it worked out fine. Just taped both boxes well. I didn’t have the budget to send off film very often (I did it once halfway through the trip), I just had to double check everything, keep out light leaks, and hope for the best. Similar to Joel Sternfeld, who had budgeted one sheet of 8×10″ per day, I had the budget to do about 2 shots every three days.

Although the history of the road trip seems to go back to Ramses II and Alexander the Great, the modern road trip seems very much rooted in Americana, post WWII, and the advent of the US highway system. What does your project bring to the road trip that we haven’t seen before?

On this trip, I traveled an average speed of 17 mph, with no barriers (like the doors and windows of a car) separating me from the world I was passing through. I was directly connected to the environments I rode through. I could feel the temperature drop as I rode in the shade of trees, I tracked inches around fly-infested roadkill, and as I rolled through small towns, I could overhear mothers talking with their daughters about what ice cream flavors they were going to get at the malt shop. It really makes you observe everything. There is no whizzing by anything, and as a result, I was able to take in these amazing landscapes, and meet a lot of characters on the road, that I don’t think I would have ever noticed in a car.

What sort of effect did this way of observing have on the photographs you made on the trip?

I’m big on atmosphere, in both an environmental/lighting sense as well as a contextual one. Prior every portrait I took, I had already ridden through the subjects town/city, seen his/her living situations, what was going on in their lives. And I was going to witness it on the ride out, after I took the picture. While shooting, I tried to incorporate these feelings, this atmosphere, into the mood of my portraits and landscapes, as a way to help explain and illustrate the subject.


For example, I have two photos from Akron, OH of Kimberlyn and her cousin, Don. Akron is a very, very economically depressed town. It used to be the number one tire producer in America, home of Goodyear, but of course (very unfortunately), times have changed, Goodyear has left, and the city has an astronomically high unemployment rate, and an astronomically low home ownership rate. Downtown is dead, stores boarded up, about half of the homes on Kimberlyn’s block are abandoned or foreclosed. When I shot these two images, I wanted to convey the sense of depression, of people getting kicked down by a ruthless economy that doesn’t favor them in the least, as they try to remain standing nonetheless. I don’t expect viewers to understand all this, but I want it there.

Your last two sentences referencing something I’ve been thinking about lately, particularly in regards to portraiture. You don’t want to beat people over the head with the club of obviousness or explanation, but you want to be sure that some of the story is actually there. Often I wonder if people *do* understand these things, although perhaps not in an immediate and conscious way.

Yeah, and I think that concept in large part determines the success of a photograph or a series- isn’t it a goal of photography to wordlessly translate what I’m thinking and seeing straight to you, through my photographs? It’s just like what Walter Benjamin says…

I’m going to have to investigate that some more. This is something I’ve been struggling with for years: “mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual”Back to your work: did you reorganize the Transamerica section of your website? I thought it was in two parts before, which I was going to ask you about, but now I only see one.

Also check out writing by Charles Baudelaire, and Barthes of course. If you want specific titles (or want to take a peek at any of my college papers haha) let me know.


I did reorganize the website. On the first trip, I shot with a hasselblad, and on the second, I shot with a 4×5 field camera, as well as a 35mm p/s for on-the-fly shots. Even when I was doing sequencing of all the shots from both trips, it kind of hurt to put these luscious 4×5 images next to these gritty 35mm p/s shots. I took that p/s camera on my bike with me (riding with a 4×5 would be a bit much), and am glad that I brought it with me, but they definitely have a lo-fi image quality to them that doesn’t match. Additionally, since I took all my of 35mm shots while on my bike, usually very quickly, they tended to be of a different mood and caliber…. apples and oranges basically. All the 35mm shots are now in their own gallery, called snapshots.

I thought that the division of the project before was something like “people” and “landscape”. Perhaps I was thinking of something else. And I’d love specific titles and would probably enjoy your college papers too! So are you in a fine art program somewhere? How’s that going?

I did have people and land sections, but then I realized it was a silly way to butcher a project in half that should probably live together. I originally did it to cut down on load time, and include more shots, but in the end I just made a tighter edit. And some people think it’s still not tight enough, but I can’t bear to take any more photos off, at least right now.


I did go to college at NYU, graduated this past may, but didn’t really do fine art. I kind of made my own major, and studied how to communicate thoughts and ideas verbally/nonliguisticually. Not so much art direction per se, more like philosophy of visual communication, in fine art, photo, advertising, etc. It was a pretty rad academic program. I now live in Portland, OR.

Thanks for the papers. I did find the people/land division to be odd because in a lot there was quite an overlap. I’ve been enjoying “peopled landscape” shots a lot lately and it’s hard to tell where a land shot becomes a people shot. Is it when the subjects are aware of you or when they fill up enough of the frame? Or maybe the balance between the subject and their context?

I like the term environmental portrait, and I think it has everything to do with the context of the subject and the environment they occupy. I usually strive for a symbiotic relationship where the subject plays nicely against the land and vice-versa.

To totally switch gears: how did you go about telling people about this project? I’ve seen it mentioned in a number of blogs. Did you contact a lot of bloggers directly? Has that internet publicity translated into much real-world (not sure if that distinction is all in my head or not!) interest?

I’ve been emailing the authors of blogs that I like about the project, and the rest, as they say, is viral. (small joke). There’s been some interest about it.

Any other projects in the works that you’d like to talk about?

Mmmmm, at the moment, I’m starting one about cold-weather surfing on the pacific coast, and one about hospitals and families’ relationships with them, as they go to visit terminally ill loved ones. But they’re kind of long term, so it’ll be a while before they’re anything ‘official’.

[post interview note: Jake was holding out on us (or he was just thinking in different terms) because he certainly did have another project going on, one that benefits emerging photographers. Check out too much chocolate]