A man named Soup mimics Johnny Cash with a rude middle finger while hanging off the back of a train. Picture: Mike Brodie / Yossi Milo Gallery / Twin Palms Publishing
- Photographer captures train-hopping culture
- Self-taught photographer was known as Polaroid kid
- Beautiful photographs have stunned the art world
MAN spends 10 years jumping trains, covering 80,500km to capture images of life on the railroad. The results are hauntingly beautiful.
Arizona-born photographer Mike Brodie has stunned America's photographic art scene with his series of images depicting the gritty youth subculture of America's freight train hoppers and squatters.
The photographs are published in Brodie's new book A Period of Juvenile Prosperity.
Brodie now works as a truck mechanic. But he still sleeps in a sleeping bag every night. Picture: Mike Brodie: Yossi Milo Gallery / Twin Palms Publishing Source: No Source
What is even more impressive is that Brodie is self taught.
He left home in 2002, aged 17, with only a few personal belongings to ride the railways. He returned home days later, infatuated with the train-hopping culture.
Train hoppers ride the rails. Picture: Mike Brodie: Yossi Milo Gallery / Twin Palms Publishing Source: No Source
"Two weeks later I was gone, witnessing my new world whiz by, especially at dusk, then darkness as I watched the sum of all the city lights cast my silhouette across the pine trees of the Florida panhandle. This was it, I was riding my very first freight train. And soon, what would begin as mere natural curiosity and self-discovery would evolve into a casting call of sorts, taking photographs of my new-found friends."
Brodie's journey from freight train rider to photographer started when he found an old Polaroid camera on the back seat of a car.
He became known as the Polaroid kid and even used the name as a graffiti tag. In 2006, Brodie switched to 35mm film. It was then that his photography skills excelled.
A train hopper leaps between carriages. Picture: Mike Brodie: Yossi Milo Gallery / Twin Palms Publishing Source: No Source
Brodie won the Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers in 2008. His work has been included in exhibitions at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; the Sonoma State University Art Gallery, Rohnert Park, California; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
"I never knew what these photos were going to turn into, what they were going to represent.
Youth who ride the rails in America cover thousands of miles. Picture: Mike Brodie: Yossi Milo Gallery / Twin Palms Publishing Source: No Source
"It was intuitive - photographing things near to me, things attractive to me, things that seemed important at the time, but I always wanted to photograph the train hoppers."
According to Yossi Milo Gallery in New York, Brodie's photographs capture the raw reality of his travels - the dirt, the blood, the struggles and, ultimately, a community of travelers who share the challenges and triumphs of life on the road.
Many of the youths who ride the rails are running from poverty or chasing their dreams. Picture: Mike Brodie: Yossi Milo Gallery / Twin Palms Publishing Source: No Source
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