Book Review: Route 1 by Caren Winnall

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Book Review: Route 1 by Caren Winnall

May 31st, 2024 by Cary Benbow

Rockland, ME © Caren Winnall

Route 1 by Caren Winnall was a project born from Winnall’s desire to follow the same path that Bernice Abbott took in 1954. Abbott started photographing in Key West, Florida and took Route 1 all the way up the east coast of the US to Fort Kent, Maine. Winnall lives within a mile form Route 1 in Connecticut, and decided to embark on a similar photographic journey between 2020-2022 with her sole road-trip companion, her dog Java.

Abbott’s ‘Route 1’ project was her largest project on a single subject, yet it got very little recognition during her life. Abbott’s reasoning behind creating the work was summed up in her statement, “We wanted to capture visually the character of an historic section of the United States, its beauties and incongruities and all. If visible evidences of the past survived, we wanted to photograph them before bulldozers and derricks moved in.”

Winnall’s Route 1 serves as a reminder to find beauty in the journey, no matter where it takes us in this world of perpetual change. She shows us a cloud floating in a pond, the witty interplay of interior versus exterior spaces in the reflections and surfaces of windows and buildings, and the touching private and public personas as seen on the faces of people along her trip. We see a sleeping fisherman, the view of a fence set against a seascape, and little pink houses. Winnall captures images which are a respite from the manic news of the day; a slow, cleansing breath in the midst of frenzy.

Machias, ME © Caren Winnall

Mystic, CT © Caren Winnall

Boston, MA © Caren Winnall

While many of the physical structures and people Abbott encountered in 1954 are long gone, Winnall’s project aptly picks up the baton by exploring the coastal vistas, verdant forests, industrial centers, strip malls, housing developments and rural landscapes that connect the famed route to the communities it passes through. “There are Dunkin Donuts, Autozones, Walmarts, 7-Elevens, McDonalds and Dollar Generals,” Winnall writes. “You see American flags, empty stores, churches, pickup trucks, cheap motels and palm trees. Route 1 can be a congested two lane road with stop lights every half mile, or a one lane road cutting through hundreds of miles of nothing. In traveling this road you witness much of the country’s diversity.”

Whether we glean meaning from attentively exploring the world around us or from life’s joys or sorrows, meaningful influence comes from many sources. Winnall says “Eventually I found that by looking closely and staying open there is beauty all around – the everyday and ordinary are actually extraordinary.”

Raleigh, NC © Caren Winnall

Rockingham, NC © Caren Winnall

Richmond Hill, GA © Caren Winnall

Key Largo, FL © Caren Winnall

Winnall mentions the David Campany book, “The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip” as a touch-point for projects like hers and other photographers. The road trip is a powerful and prominent theme for photographers. The genre prompts many questions and leads the viewer down multiple paths toward understanding the work. Is the journey and the resulting images intended to document the sense of places or the experience of seeing those places? Does the photographer present an overarching theme or impart a personal bias when creating or presenting their images? Or do we the viewer connect the dots from our own personal biases, and draw our own meanings even if it does not match the intent of the photographer?

I don’t know if I’m drawn to projects like Winnall’s that embody a spirit of connectivity and community, or if I have a hidden confirmation bias. A joy of hitting the road and exploring, or celebrating the poetry of the commonplace is enjoyable and comforting to me. I often see optimism in the work of others even when they were not trying to convey it. There are plenty of days filled with negativity in the newscast, broadcast or headlines of the day, and it feels far too easy to drift into pessimism. Maybe finding beauty in the everyday draws me (and I hope many people) to enjoy and find meaning from sources like Winnall’s honest observations.

Route 1
by Caren Winnall
Designer – Sally Ann Field
10 x 9 in, Hardcover
Sewn casebound, White foil stamping on cover and spine
Edition of 75. Self-published by Mongrel Dog Press.
Printed and bound by Graphiscan in Montreal.

Caren Winnall is a lens-based visual artist with a practice that examines everyday life in contemporary society. Her work ranges from portraying diverse American and international communities with sensitivity, to examining traces of cultural identity on her forays across American landscapes. To learn more about Route 1 and see more of her work, please visit her website.

About Cary Benbow

Photographer, Writer, Publisher of Wobneb Magazine

View all posts by Cary Benbow →

Location: Online Type: Book Review

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