American Southwest // Part 01

This is the story of one of my biggest dreams: photographing the American Southwest. I dreamed traveling to the US since i was at the high school, envisioning the southwest from the Grand Canyon to the major US cities.

This wasn't only a journey. For me America is something more. Difficult to describe.

The canyons, national parks, forest, deserts, mountains, cities skylines, typical american diners, Rams at the gas stations, Peterbilt with more than 700k miles, America highways, BNSF trains though the "infinity" with more than 3 miles of carriage, the concept of "everything is bigger in America", eating out at Wendy's, the conflicting concept of freedom...

--

Finally, 2023 was my year! At the beginning, i didn't know what to do because i had a lot of ideas. The first one was from Seattle to San Diego, Mt. Rainier, Olympic NP, and the coastal road through Washington, Oregon, and Cali state. I skipped the classical California road trip (LA - Vegas - SF and the related parks) because it didn't inspire me photographically.

My second idea was Miami, the south (Everglades and Key Largo/Key West), and the north part: Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, then the coastal Alabama / Mississippi / Louisiana with the final destination: the jazz capital of the world - New Orleans. My third option was the PURE southwest, the vastness where you can't see the end of the land, the infinity, the heart of a part of America culture: Navajo Nation! You can imagine what i chose.

--

My southwest road trip lasted three weeks, with Phoenix, AZ, as the starting/ending point, one of the top US cities in terms of population and nominated as the hottest US city (Phoenix in August was perfect :)). I flew from Milan Linate to Frankfurt with an A320 operated by Lufthansa, then with an amazing B767-300 operated by Condor from Frankfurt to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

My photography project took me through five US states: Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada. I developed this photography project in two parts: the first part is about the "PURE American Landscape" which i accomplished digitally. Here all photos are with Canon 6DMKII / 16-35 F4 IS USM / 70-200 F4 IS USM.

Five states in, 45 to go!! For my next US journey, i'm thinking about Alaska or the midwest... What do you think?

Hope you like it!