National Character

PHOTOGRAPHY

Oct 21

In National Character, photographer John Sanderson travels across the American landscape in search of a country increasingly hidden in plain sight. Working with a 4×5 film camera, he takes the long way around – leaving major highways for small roads and carrying a demanding piece of photographic history into places shaped by industry, decline and change. His commitment to the journey is reflected in the photographs: patient, precise and quietly melancholic, they find a strange beauty in the overlooked corners of America.

Photography John Sanderson

National Character is a geographically broad rendering of social landscapes across the American Realm. These photographs inhabit the postclectic age, a current epoch bridging the gap between the culturally rich post-industrial and the encroachingly antiseptic technological age. A certain melancholia imbues these photographs.

“The tired faces and stained facades I am attracted to are on the verge of irrelevance in an increasingly tech-driven world – yet there is hope…”

The tired faces and stained facades I am attracted to are on the verge of irrelevance in an increasingly tech-driven world – yet there is hope; the things built before modernity are cathected with the charm of human effort and demand to be seen. Yet the distractions of today often blind us to the truth written on their surfaces. The commonplace has become all too common, a veritable exercise in the predictable: strip malls, franchised restaurants, banks, and a gas station on every corner of a four-way intersection.

It would be false to say I don’t rely on these conveniences, but I am still trying to figure out why I don’t picture them. In searching for examples of our national identity, I often exit major byways and instead travel intimate two-lane roads in searching for that spiritual topography so indicative of postclectic American Places.

“In searching for examples of our national identity, I often exit major byways and instead travel intimate two-lane roads in searching for that spiritual topography so indicative of postclectic American Places.”

About John

John Sanderson is a photographer based in New York whose work explores the changing landscapes and social environments of the American Realm. Raised in Midtown Manhattan, his practice is shaped by an interest in architecture, people and the spaces where they intersect. Over the past two decades, he has developed projects examining transportation, industry, residence, leisure and decay, working primarily with large-format film. Sanderson is a master printer and sees the print as the conclusion of the photographic process.

His work has been featured in publications including The Wall Street Journal, BBC News, Slate and PDN, and is held in public and private collections including the Figge Museum of Art, New York Transit Museum and International Center of Photography. He has published several monographs, including National Character (2017), Carbon County (2019) and The Grove (2025).

To see more of his work, visit his website or follow him on Instagram

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In National Character, photographer John Sanderson travels across the American landscape in search of a country increasingly hidden in plain sight. Working with a 4×5 film camera, he takes the long way around – leaving major highways for small roads and carrying a demanding piece of photographic history into places shaped by industry, decline and change. His commitment to the journey is reflected in the photographs: patient, precise and quietly melancholic, they find a strange beauty in the overlooked corners of America.

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Christian Trippe

National Character

“The tired faces and stained facades I am attracted to are on the verge of irrelevance in an increasingly tech-driven world – yet there is hope…”

“In searching for examples of our national identity, I often exit major byways and instead travel intimate two-lane roads in searching for that spiritual topography so indicative of postclectic American Places.”

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52 Weeks – Stolen and Preserved