WESSEL, Henry - Traffic. Sunset Park. Continental Divide

Background information

"This book, 'Traffic / Sunset Park / Continental Divide' by Henry WESSEL presents three independent bodies of work by the American New Topographic photographer, each being a precise sequence arranged to give the viewer the experience of what it felt like to pass through the territory described.

Content

The first series 'Traffic' shows Henry WESSEL's photos of drivers stuck in traffic as he commuted in the early 1980s from Richmond, California, to San Francisco in the morning rush hour. Wessel records the determination, impatience and blank boredom of his fellow drivers as they navigate a daily drill that seems at times daunting and hopeless.
'Sunset Park' is Henry WESSEL's series of night photos of the modest working-class neighborhood of Sunset Park in Santa Monica. Over 4 years in the mid-1990s, Wessel captured the nocturnal transformation of suburbia into a strange, sometimes eerie, landscape.  In his words: “You can’t help but notice how the world is reconfigured by the lights at night. The spot lighting of particular areas, the lack of ambient light, the unnatural way that shadows are cast, all take us to an unfamiliar place…”
Henry WESSEL's final series 'Continental Divide' takes the viewer on a ride from the dense, suburban flatlands of the Midwest, up across the Rocky Mountains, and down into the sparse desert landscape of the American West. Wessel depicts its houses, shacks, street corners, and the highway, reminding us of the inherent aesthetics of the everyday." (© Steidl Verlag, 2016)

About the American photographer, Henry WESSEL (1942-2018)

Photo books by and with contribution of Henry WESSEL