USA, 1981

I started traveling through the United States in 1980 - I was 22 years old at the time. The first time I went there I flew to Houston - and flew back one week later. The question why I stayed so short at the time often crossed my mind. In retrospect, it was the scale I couldn't comprehend. Seldom in my life I have felt more lonely then that particular time. I was by foot, a backpack, a camera and hardly any money. I also carried an old sleeping bag that had been given to me by the Salvation Army, for whom I used to work then in order to earn the money to start traveling. When I arrived in Houston I had no idea where to go to; I slept on the floor of the airport church - cold and a little scared.

After that visit, I have returned to the US many times. One year later, 1981, I went to New York and this time prepared better. I visited the University of Albany in up-state New York - summercourses. Some 4 weeks later I returned to New York City. In 1984 I first traveled through South East Asia and then, right after that ,3 months through the US again. By bus, delivering cars, renting wrecks, by foot - it didn't matter how, as long as I could stay on the move.

In 1991 and 1992 I traveled through the US again for a few months, focussed on what I finally called "STOP AND SAY HELLO"; this series continued what I had started in earlier visits and shows ordinary life along the road in the US. Many things are pleasant in life; one of them definitely is stepping into a car, switching on some music and drive slowly and relaxed, no plans, just go. But simultaneously, our mind has to be open and we have to be interested in everyday life and its trivialities: a message along the roadside expressed by an individual, the faces of individualism, sometimes hilarious, sometimes highly tragic, humour, the cry for attention - subjects that have been investigated by many photographers and that have been photographed in many variations.

By and large I choose to photograph what one encounters in terms of signs, signals and language - subtle visual traces. That means that I look for religious messages along the public road, advertising, homes, shops, motels and so on and so forth. If you look along with me, you will quickly realise that I'm not interested in a smooth uniform society, but that I'm much more interested in the individual expression, the unusual, the eccentric, the hilarious - in fact the opposite of the slick message.

Have a look at a subtle photograph that was made in Weston, Tennessee (USA 1991-1992) for example. We see a big lake and a small house on a peninsula. A special place, inhabited by people who who made it their own. Although one sees no other house in its vicinity, no other human being, only water, the owners found it necessary to install a sign saying 'NO TRESPASSING'. To me, that says a lot about the people who inhabit this spot. Is this a form of extreme individualism, necessity, law, remnants of colonialism?

And what to think of someone who painted 5 signs and puts them up at a T-section, almost forcing drivers who make a stop to read the slightly religious, anonymous forecast about 'The Nineties And Beyond' (Lake Charles, Louisiana - USA 1991-1992).

At the end of the nineties and the beginning of 2000 I started a series called "PERIPHERAL NEW YORK" - a series of panoramic images documenting the surroundings of New York City. I wanted to see and photograph horizontally what was to be found in the periphery of such a distinctly vertical city. For that reason I choose to travel to less well known parts of New York City, making a more or less circular movement around the city - I was curious to see what was happening at those places where city stopped and landscape would start.

In 2007, 2008 and 2009 I decide to expand "STOP AND SAY HELLO". Again, slow travels by car, careful observations, this time only in color and partially digital, whereas I used to photograph everything in black and white on film. In 2008 I definitely wanted to visit the US because I wanted to know whether the changing political relations in the world were having their visual impact on everyday life along the road? Would 9/11, the war in Irak, the immense increase in US national debt and the resulting increase in poverty, 8 years of Republican conservative national and international policies by the Bush administration and new elections coming up soon, lead to a different visual experience along the road? The answer was that the roadsides were as barren as they had always been, that increasing poverty was no doubt there but not more visually present than before, and that the elections mainly took place over the internet, but left no real, clear traces on the street - at least not when I was there. But still, the trip was fascinating so I decided to do it again in 2009.

The title for this series was found on a roadsign somewhere in Arizona in 1992 (Highway 89, Arizona - USA 1991-1992).
"STOP AND SAY HELLO" consists momentarily of about 500 photographs.